# So You Want To Disband Your Guild

fangirlcrazily

A Supplementary Document to Advise Existing Guild Leaders

# Introduction

So you’re considering disbanding your guild. While it can be a disheartening experience, it does not need to be overly painful. Deciding to relinquish your guild can be a relief to yourself and your members, especially if the guild has been on a consistent decline. It frees up time for you to pursue things you enjoy more, and allows your members to join another guild with that character.

Still, you may be still considering your options. This document is designed to help you decide if disbanding your guild is the right choice for you and your guild, and if not, what your alternatives are. It is not mandatory reading, however it can greatly aid you in reducing pain and frustration.

# Why Disband A Guild?

A guild’s disbandment should not be taken lightly. Here are some good reasons why you might want to disband your guild.

Your guild has been on a steady decline in all aspects of members, activity, and funds.
There are irreconcilable differences in leadership between the co-leaders.
It is no longer economically viable to operate the guild, whether due to lack of donations or people not paying taxes.

Here are some less ideal reasons why you might want to disband your guild. These reasons, if combined with one of the above, can be fine, but on their own they are usually not an ideal reason.

You want to disband your guild so you can go form a new guild
- This is not only irresponsible, but also a temporary escape from the administrative work that a guild comes with. New and flashy is always more appealing than old and boring, but this method abandons the members who put effort and money into your guild.
You don’t want to deal with existing members
- Consider relinquishing leadership to someone else instead. While it is tempting to let your pride get ahead of you, above all you should prioritize the welfare of the guild and who can best lead it to success.
You want to retire your character and don’t want the guild to continue on without you.
- Consider relinquishing leadership before retirement. While the guild may go in a different direction, it will have the benefit of retaining all its modules rather than having to start from scratch.

# How to Disband

Call a town hall meeting with your guild members. Highlight what you think are the current problems the guild is facing.
Try to create and test out solutions. You can refer to the section below on other methods to try.
If there are no viable solutions or the test runs fail, convene with any co-leaders or representatives to discuss the situation.
If you decide on disbandment, announce it to the guild. Ping the guild role and give a detailed and truthful explanation on why you are disbanding. Thank them for their support. Have them react to acknowledge the message.
Decide how to distribute the guild’s assets. You may wish to refund recent donations before you file for disbandment and your coffers are given to the Senate. Divvy up items donated to the guild, whether returning them to their original owners or leaving them up for grabs.
File for disbandment. Staff will instruct you on how to proceed.
If your guild has been around for a long time, you may wish to reach out to individual members to talk to them about the disbandment. Disbandment can be an emotional situation for those who spend a lot of time in the guild.

# How Not to Disband

Go inactive indefinitely
- This complicates any possible transfer of ownership as if there is someone who wishes to take over, they can only request to be a representative and not the rightful owner.
- This also leaves your guild taxes in a limbo, which will lead to it being forcibly closed during auditing and the members forcibly evicted
Remain active in other channels but never address the situation
- This prevents action from being taken, which both stalls the guild’s progress as well as forcing members to resign if they want to have an active guild experience.
- You can always privately contact an existing representative and offer a quiet transfer of ownership. The new leader can then handle any questions.
Leave the server/Delete your account
- Not only is this a rash response with long lasting effects, it will make retrieving any material you are holding onto impossible, leading to everything needing to be recreated.
- This also makes finding messages sent by you extremely difficult
- No one will judge you if you simply say you have lost interest or cannot handle the pressure, and complete the transferring/disbanding process before leaving.

# Alternatives to Disbanding A Guild

# Relinquishing Ownership

Transferring leadership to someone who is more active and has more motivation to do the work is the most painless, frictionless way for your guild to continue.

You may wish to relinquish ownership if you are experiencing the following:

You have been suffering from a lack of time, energy, or motivation to do guild work.
You find yourself struggling to keep up with the server’s latest updates
You no longer have an interest in the guild’s concept
You want to retire or rebuild your character

You should not consider relinquishing ownership and instead consider disbanding if you are experiencing the following:

All prospective candidates for ownership are not a good fit
No one is interested in taking over leadership
The guild has a lack of activity as a whole

Here are some questions to ask yourself when evaluating a prospective new leader:

Are they interested in leading?
- Some people are interested in paperwork but not necessarily the people management that comes with being a guild leader. Always ask them in private to confirm before relinquishing the role
Are they active?
- Not only should they be active in roleplay channels in general, but they should ideally be invested in the guild’s development
Do they have experience with guild management?
- Players who have been around longer tend to be more aware of the life cycle of guilds, however this is not always the case. Experience co-managing or handling admin work for another guild is always a plus.

You could also have the guild members nominate and vote for their new leader. Please do this before leaving the guild so that permissions can be transferred cleanly.

Here is a checklist of things to transfer:

Editing permissions of guild documents and spreadsheets.
- Transferring ownership is the best and prevents permission problems down the line. You can google how to do this.
Notes on guild matters, such as planned projects and upgrades
Rundowns on the members
- This may be a good time to prune your members to prevent bloat from getting in the way of progress
How-tos on important duties, such as submitting taxes and guild member registrations
Anything else you may find relevant or helpful to the new leader

# Special Circumstances: Gaining Ownership when the Owner is Inactive

For guild members whose owner is inactive, you can make a bid for ownership by following the steps below.

Contact the owner through PMs. Sometimes people are simply busy and do not have time to go online for a few days or weeks.
If it has been at least one month and the owner has not sent a message at all on the server, ping the guild to address the situation
Discuss the next course of action. You may wish to hold an election or simply transfer ownership to an existing representative.
Once you have a new leader, put a request using the Guild Representative template in #guild-registry , but add a note that they are the new guild leader.
Recreate any documents which you do not have editing permissions to

# Rebranding

Rebranding involves overhauling the concept and flavor of the guild. This may involve demolishing certain modules, changing guild types, changing the name of the guild, and more.

You may wish to do a rebranding if you are experiencing the following:

Majority of members are tired of the concept as a whole
- This can be a consequence of having a joke concept. Avoid having these to minimize this problem
The concept was not clearly established during formation, and is now causing problems in determining the direction of the guild.
The guild has greatly evolved since formation and its name or facilities are no longer representative of its current state

You should not consider a rebranding and instead consider disbanding if you are experiencing the following:

There is no replacement concept that majority of members are onboard with
The guild has a lack of activity as a whole

You should definitely call a vote when deciding if to rebrand a guild, skipping members who are inactive. If the majority of the members vote against a rebranding, then the cause could instead be a conflict of interest, and you should consider relinquishing ownership instead.

Here is a checklist of things you can consider for rebranding. All are optional:

Change of Name
- Changing your name is the quickest and easiest way to distance yourself from your past concept and let people know there is a new guild in town. Choose a name that is future-proof and resonates with your plans for the guild.
Change of Design
- A great way to get people excited is with new art. Consider revamping your logo, building design, and decor.
Change of Leadership
- A rebranding can be a good opportunity to iron out kinks in the old leadership style, such as inactive leaders or slow decision making. You can consider switching to a different leader, a coalition of leaders, or even a democracy.
Change of Modules or Guild Type
- Set aside time with your members OOC to go through the list of available guild modules and decide which you would like to go with. It is important to balance mechanical benefits with cohesion of flavor.

# Conclusion

If you have to resort to disbanding your guild, it is okay. It may or may not be your fault, but it is nothing to beat yourself up over. You can choose to handle disbandment in a way that is comfortable to your emotional state. As long as you take responsibility for your guild, no one will blame you.

If you have more questions, please feel free to ask in #server-questions . Or if you want to request a certain aspect be covered more in depth, feel free to pop it in #server-suggestions . All the best!