Skip to content

Administrator

Status: Draft, pre-formation. The Year-1 budget plans for one part-time Administrator engaged as a 1099 contractor for ~20 hours/week. As the Guild grows past the Year-1 plan, this role is expected to convert to a W-2 Executive Director position.

Purpose

The Administrator runs the Guild day to day. They are the operational counterpart to the board: the board sets direction and policy; the Administrator executes within that direction.

Reports to

The Board of Directors, through the Chair. Day-to-day coordination with the Chair, formal accountability to the board.

Supervises

  • The Bookkeeper
  • Vendor relationships within the approved scope
  • The Volunteer Program Lead role (or holds the role themselves in Year 1)

Specific duties

Operations

  • Maintain the Guild's calendar of board, committee, and member meetings
  • Coordinate logistics for board meetings, the annual member meeting, and committee meetings
  • Maintain the member portal and member directory in coordination with the IT lead
  • Manage member onboarding, dues invoicing, renewals, and lapses
  • Run member service: respond to inquiries, route requests, escalate per policy

Governance support

  • Prepare board meeting packets in coordination with the Chair and Secretary
  • Maintain the action register of board decisions and follow up on items between meetings
  • Support the Secretary in keeping the minute book current
  • Support the Treasurer in preparing financials and audit/990 documentation

Vendor and contract coordination

  • Negotiate and sign vendor agreements within the approved signing limit
  • Bring agreements above the signing limit to the Treasurer and Chair for co-signature with prior board authorization
  • Maintain the vendor file with executed contracts, COIs, and renewal dates

Communications

  • Manage member-facing communications (newsletters, renewals, event invitations)
  • Maintain the Guild's website and social presence within the approved brand standards
  • Coordinate press inquiries: hold for Chair response on substantive matters; respond to logistical/factual matters within scope

Financial discipline

  • Initiate but not approve payments
  • Monitor budget against actuals; flag variances to the Treasurer
  • Hold one of the bank/Stripe credential pairs subject to the dual-control rule (the second credential holder is the Treasurer)

Volunteer program (Year 1)

In Year 1 the Administrator may also serve as the Volunteer Program Lead. In that capacity:

  • Operate intake, matching, and recordkeeping per programs/volunteers/
  • Maintain the volunteer roster
  • Confirm with each named supervisor before posting any role for recruitment

IT and systems administration

In Year 1 the Administrator also acts as the Guild's systems administrator. This is an operational role; technical decisions of architectural significance go to the board on the Treasurer's or Chair's referral. The IT/sysadmin scope and its guardrails are below.

Scope of the sysadmin role

  • Owns day-to-day administration of the Guild's digital systems: domain registrar, DNS, hosting (Cloudways), website (WordPress / YOOtheme), email (Google Workspace), member portal, payments (Stripe), email marketing (Klaviyo), project management, and the proposal repository on GitHub
  • Maintains a current systems inventory at tech/systems-inventory.md listing every account, owner of record, billing source, and recovery contact
  • Provisions and de-provisions access for board, staff, and volunteers per their role
  • Applies routine updates, backups, and security patches; documents changes in the systems log
  • Coordinates with vendors (Cloudways, Google, Stripe, etc.) on support tickets, billing, and renewals
  • Implements board-approved technology decisions; does not decide major platform changes alone

Account ownership and the break-glass plan

No critical Guild account is held only by one human. For every system in the inventory:

  • Owner of record: the Guild itself (legal entity), via a Guild-controlled email and billing account, never a personal email or personal credit card
  • Primary administrator: the sysadmin (Administrator)
  • Secondary administrator: the Treasurer or Board Chair (assigned in writing in the systems inventory; not the same person as the primary)
  • Recovery contact: the Board Chair (or Vice Chair if Chair is the secondary) plus the Guild's registered agent, depending on the system

Break-glass procedure is documented at tech/break-glass.md (placeholder until ratified) and covers:

  1. How the secondary administrator regains access if the sysadmin is unavailable, incapacitated, or has stepped away
  2. Where the emergency credential envelope is stored (offline, sealed, signed by sysadmin and Board Chair, kept by the registered agent or in a board-approved safe)
  3. Tested annually by the sysadmin and the secondary administrator at the January governance review; tabletop drill recorded in the minutes
  4. Triggered only by written authorization of the Board Chair (or Vice Chair); use is logged in the systems log within 24 hours

Quarterly access review

Once per quarter, the sysadmin and at least one director who is not the sysadmin (typically the Treasurer or a designated technology director) jointly review:

  • Every account in the systems inventory
  • Every active user across systems
  • Recent admin-level changes from the systems log
  • Any flagged anomalies from monitoring

The review is documented in two pages or fewer and reported to the board on the consent agenda. This review is also referenced on the compliance calendar.

Separation of duties

The Administrator's sysadmin authority does not include:

  • Treasurer signing authority — the sysadmin never co-signs as Treasurer, never holds Treasurer credentials, and never approves a payment they initiated
  • Approval of their own reimbursement, certification, membership, or waiver — governed by the reimbursement policy, hours certification, complimentary membership policy, and scholarship & hardship waiver
  • Independent technology purchases above the signing limit — same rule as any other vendor contract
  • Reading or routing complaints addressed to the Whistleblower channel — the channel is segmented from sysadmin access by design (see whistleblower policy)
  • Direct access to the Treasurer's QuickBooks Online file beyond the access role explicitly granted by the Treasurer, even if technically possible at the platform level

Handover plan

When the role becomes a posted, contracted paid role (or when the Administrator transitions out for any reason):

  1. The sysadmin produces a handover packet at least 30 days in advance: current systems inventory, license/billing summary, runbooks, open tickets, vendor contacts, and the date the emergency credential envelope was last refreshed
  2. The board confirms the secondary administrator and recovery contact remain in place during the transition
  3. Credentials are rotated on the effective date by the secondary administrator; the outgoing sysadmin loses admin access on that date and is removed from billing accounts within 5 business days
  4. Quarterly access review is brought forward to the transition date
  5. The outgoing sysadmin remains available, on a short consulting basis if needed, for 30 days to answer succession questions — paid at the contracted rate or as a continuing volunteer if appropriate; structurally separate from board service or member status

Authority and limits

May May not
Sign vendor contracts under the signing limit Sign contracts above the limit without board authorization
Initiate payments and AR/AP Approve their own payments; co-sign with the Treasurer above the threshold set in the adopted financial policies
Speak for the Guild on logistical and factual matters Set board-approved positions or speak on policy
Direct contractors and vendors Direct directors or officers — they are not subordinate
Recommend hires for the bookkeeper or contractor roles Hire/dismiss without Treasurer recommendation and board approval
Receive ethics complaints Adjudicate them — these go to the Membership & Ethics committee

Prerequisites

  • Three or more years of nonprofit, association, or comparable operations experience
  • Demonstrated comfort with member-driven organizations
  • Comfort with web tools (WordPress, payments, email automation, project management)
  • High-trust handling of confidential information
  • No undisclosed material conflicts with member companies

Time and compensation (Year 1)

Aspect Plan
Engagement 1099 contractor
Hours ~20 hours/week, with reasonable peaking around board meetings, the founding convening, and audit/990 windows
Rate TBD; set in engagement letter and Year-1 budget adopted by founding board
Term 12-month renewable agreement
Termination Either party with 30 days' written notice; immediate for material breach

Performance and review

  • Goals set jointly by the Chair and Administrator at the start of each fiscal year
  • Quarterly check-ins with the Chair
  • Annual written review by the Chair, reviewed by the full board in executive session
  • The board may engage an outside HR or governance consultant to support reviews; cost line in the budget

Conflicts and confidentiality

Insurance and indemnification

  • Covered by the Guild's D&O policy in their administrative capacity, subject to the policy's terms
  • Indemnified per the bylaws to the extent permitted by law

Path to Executive Director conversion

When the Guild's operating budget supports a full-time, W-2 Executive Director (typically when membership and sponsorship sustain a fully loaded compensation package with a 12-month reserve), the board may:

  1. Convene a transition committee to review the converted role description
  2. Open the position via the Nominating & Governance committee process
  3. Decide whether to convert the existing Administrator or recruit externally
  4. Update bylaws and policies as needed

Linked documents