What is legacy planning?
The new legacy planning feature on Permanent.org allows you to plan for what should happen to your materials in the event of your passing. In the first release of the legacy planning feature, you will be able to choose who should maintain your Permanent.org archives after you have passed.
Legacy planning is an important part of our mission because we believe that everyone has a story to share. Our name, Permanent.org, comes from the desire to ensure that your materials are preserved into the future. We know that it can be difficult to plan for your passing. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to make sure the legacy you create on Permanent.org lives on.
How do you create a legacy plan?
There are two steps to creating a legacy plan on Permanent.org.
The first step is to designate a legacy contact. Your legacy contact will reach out to the Permanent.org team to inform us of your death or permanent incapacitation. This will activate the plans that you have set up for your Permanent.org archives. You will need to enter your legacy contact's name and email address in this step.
The second step is to designate an
archive steward for each archive that you own. The
archive steward will take ownership of your archive and maintain it after you are gone (
learn more about archive member roles in this article). They will be in charge of fulfilling your wishes for what should happen to your archive. In this step, you will need to enter your archive steward's email address. The archive steward must have a Permanent.org account to be named as an archive steward. You also have the opportunity to leave a note for your archive steward about your wishes for your archive.
Future development
The release of the legacy planning feature in the spring of 2023 will include options for who you would like to transfer your archive to in the event of your death or permanent incapacitation. We plan on releasing more options for creating a plan for your archive in the future. This will include options such as deleting your archive after a period of time or publishing your archive after a period of time. You will also be able to designate what should happen to any leftover storage you have in your account.
We are excited to be able to offer this feature for our members to ensure their legacy is passed on to the next generation.