Does Aretha Franklin’s Will Hold a Lesson for Your Nonprofit?

For five years after Aretha Franklin’s 2018 death, her estate couldn’t be settled because her heirs had to wait for a judge to decide which of her multiple wills to recognize.  Ultimately, the judge accepted a will found in a notebook stuffed into couch cushions as her last will and testament.  Can you imagine your organization being paralyzed for 5 years waiting for a judge to decide which by-laws were the correct version? Unable to take any action – not even able to appoint new Board members or replace an Executive Director who has left? That would be cataclysmic.  And that’s why this episode dives into your document retention process. Not the policy that states how long you have to keep documents, but the procedures for ensuring they are actually retained and transferred during leadership transitions.