✅ Leaving Well: Handover Checklist for Database and Insight Roles
For data professionals preparing to leave a charity role
Whether you’re moving on to a new challenge or simply wrapping up a contract, this checklist will help you leave your role in the best shape possible for your colleagues and your successor.
1. The Essentials
- A summary of your key responsibilities and recurring tasks
- A week-in-the-life task list or time log to show day-to-day workload
- A full list of regular reports and exports (who uses them, when and why)
- Locations of saved reports, queries, dashboards or automations
- Documentation on data selections, segmentation logic and key queries
- An overview of integrations and data flows (including third-party systems)
2. Technical Access and Processes
- All logins and credentials stored securely and shared appropriately
- List of systems with admin rights and user management guidance
- Instructions for data tasks linked to finance (e.g. Gift Aid claims, income reconciliation)
- Export and import processes for fundraising campaigns and fulfilment
- Any scheduled or automated tasks documented (e.g. via Power Automate, SSIS, cron jobs)
- Any “manual” processes that happen at critical times (e.g. batching, deduping)
3. External Relationships
- List of external contacts (fulfilment houses, consultants, print suppliers, etc)
- Contact points at key platforms (CRM provider, forms platform, email tools)
- Explanation of what each partner does and how you work together
- Any contracts or service agreements flagged and passed on
4. History and Context
- A short timeline of what has changed during your time in post
- e.g. GDPR implementation, migrations, new tools or integrations
- Notes on any system or process improvements made
- Summary of key challenges you managed and lessons learned
- Known issues or risks with data structure, reporting or compliance
5. The Parking Lot
- List of ideas and improvements that have not yet been implemented
- Any low-priority tickets or requests that have been paused
- Suggestions for what should be prioritised next (short term and long term)
- Any skills or roles the organisation may want to invest in next
6. Sharing the Knowledge
- Screenshare walkthroughs recorded for tricky or high-value tasks
- A team-wide Q&A session offered or scheduled
- Confidence that knowledge is now spread more widely
🧠 What Might Be Missing?
A prompt sheet for fundraisers, finance teams and supporter care colleagues
To help you spot gaps before or after your database colleague leaves
This is not about catching people out. It’s about surfacing the invisible work that keeps your data and income flowing. Use this sheet to ask the right questions and jog memories during handover.
Data and Fundraising
- Do we know how our mailing selections are built?
- Who builds our donor journey triggers or campaign exports?
- What reports do we receive regularly, and who sets them up?
- Who do we ask when we want a new segment or audience built?
- What data flows into our email platform or survey tools, and how?
Finance and Gift Aid
- Who prepares the Gift Aid claim?
- Who exports the monthly income journal?
- How do we check and reconcile direct debit or online income?
- Who handles HMRC logins and submissions?
Campaigns and Fulfilment
- Do we know how fulfilment files are created and checked?
- Who checks formatting and file specs for mailing suppliers?
- Are there automations or manual tasks linked to donation forms?
Risk and Continuity
- Do we know how to log in to our CRM and key platforms?
- Who has admin rights to grant access to new users?
- What reports are used by the Board or SMT?
- What has been left unfinished or still needs fixing?
People and Process
- Who trained us last time on using the database properly?
- What bits of the process are still done manually?
- Has anything been flagged before that we didn’t get around to fixing?
- Are there any frustrations we’ve lived with because someone just handled it?