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ResourcesBoard checklists

Two checklists to take into the meeting.

Ten questions on who owns your member data, and ten to ask before you sign with any vendor or studio. Tick, write the answer and who gave it, print.

A board meeting around a table, members reviewing printed papers

Answers stay in this browser only. Nothing is sent to us.

Who owns your member data?

0 / 10

  1. The database, the hosting and the domain. If they are in a vendor's or a studio's name, you are a tenant.

  2. A complete export, every table, in a standard format. How long, and what does it cost?

  3. PostgreSQL, MySQL or similar, or a proprietary format only the vendor understands?

  4. Which of the vendor's staff, which subcontractors, which other systems it is copied to. In writing.

  5. If the screen hides the rest, a bug exposes everything.

  6. Daily backups are common. A tested restore is rare. When was the last one?

  7. For a rented AMS (the association management system most associations rent), no, and that is normal. For a custom platform, yes, in a repository you control.

  8. The export and a migration, or another team taking over the code? Where is the handoff document?

  9. If the website and the member system are separate products, leaving one breaks the other.

  10. Ownership of data, code and accounts; export rights; handoff obligations. If it is not written, it is not agreed.

Before you sign with any vendor or studio

0 / 10

  1. Audit, design, build, run, each with a written deliverable and a price, and a decision point between them.

  2. Hosting, database, domain, email, payments. Not transferred later.

  3. Open and widely used, so another team can take it over. Not a proprietary platform or a plugin marketplace.

  4. In a repository the association controls from the first commit.

  5. Documentation, runbooks and staff training, with a date, before launch.

  6. A command and a standard format, or a ticket and a fee?

  7. A dated answer, or none.

  8. Subcontractors, other systems, support staff. Listed.

  9. Access, accounts, code and data, with timings.

  10. If the answer is complicated, that is the answer.

Ask both lists of a rented system and of a custom build, and compare. A rented system will honestly fail several by design. The failure is a board that believes it holds the second set of answers when it holds the first. The full piece

Take the answers into the audit.

Start with a three-week audit: every tool mapped, a blueprint and a fixed quote. No demo, no sales deck.

Start with an audit