It sometimes happens that one of the officers of an organization—such as the president, a vice-president, the secretary, the treasurer, or a director on the executive board—decides that he or she is no longer willing or able to continue to serve as such. In general, the officer submits his or her resignation, the resignation is accepted, and the resulting vacancy is filled. Each of these three steps, however, must be done carefully and correctly to avoid future problems.

When an officer decides to quit, he or she must make a request to be excused from that duty, also known as submitting a resignation. It is important to note that this is merely a request, and does not have the effect of removing the officer from office immediately. In fact, the officer must continue to perform all of his or her duties until the resignation has been accepted, or until a reasonable amount of time for this has passed. If one is unwilling or unable to abide by this rule, then he or she should not accept election or appointment to an office.

A resignation is normally given in writing, but can be given orally instead, and is submitted to the secretary, or to the “appointing power”—the person or body authorized to appoint or elect the officer in question. It can be withdrawn unilaterally at any time before it is accepted, but cannot be withdrawn afterwards.

Once the appointing power has learned of the resignation, it must come to a decision as to whether or not it will be accepted. If the appointing power is an individual person, this is of course a simple matter of making and effecting the decision. On the other hand, if the appointing power is a deliberative body, a question on granting the request to be excused from the duty must be moved, seconded, stated, debated, put, and voted upon in the usual manner for motions, or else adopted by unanimous consent. A second is needed only if the motion is made in person by the requester. The decision can be reconsidered only if the requester has not yet been informed thereof, or if it was in the negative.

Once the resignation has been accepted and a vacancy thereby created, consideration must be given to filling the vacancy. First, if the officer who resigned was the president, then upon acceptance of the resignation the vice-president (or highest-ranking vice-president) automatically becomes president, and a vacancy occurs in the office of vice-president (or lowest-ranking vice-president, as each vice-president moves up one rank). Once it has been determined which office will be filled, the appointing power proceeds to fill it in the appropriate manner. If the appointing power is a deliberative body, this requires an election with previous notice.