Hardware Grants Summary - Revision history

Dheiber: /* Hardware Grants: How A Grant Becomes A Reality */

2011-12-09T23:51:50Z

Hardware Grants: How A Grant Becomes A Reality

Dheiber: /* Current Issues */

2011-11-01T23:48:07Z

Current Issues

Dheiber: /* Hardware Grants: How A Grant Becomes A Reality */

2011-10-28T21:32:54Z

Hardware Grants: How A Grant Becomes A Reality

Dheiber: /* Outreach */

2011-10-26T22:58:02Z

Outreach

Dheiber: /* Maintaining the Three Month Check-In Survey spreadsheet */

2011-10-26T22:54:45Z

Maintaining the Three Month Check-In Survey spreadsheet

Dheiber: /* Hardware Grants: How A Grant Becomes A Reality */

2011-10-26T22:51:37Z

Hardware Grants: How A Grant Becomes A Reality

Paulm: /* Current Issues */

2011-09-13T18:32:34Z

Current Issues

Paulm: /* Things You Will Need To Know How To Do */

2011-09-13T18:26:18Z

Things You Will Need To Know How To Do

Paulm: /* Things You Will Need To Know How To Do */

2011-09-13T18:25:52Z

Things You Will Need To Know How To Do

Elizabethwt: /* Outreach */

2011-09-13T18:01:25Z

Outreach

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 ==Hardware Grants: How A Grant Becomes A Reality==
-A hardware grant begins when an organization requests a grant using an online form.  As soon as it is completed the coordinator and volunteers are alerted to its existence.  Grants are usually processed within a week, though the outside limit is two weeks.  The vast majority of hardware grants are approved.  For a grant to be rejected there has to be a good reason: it was a for-profit organization or an individual, we don't have or don't grant the technology that they need, they are located abroad, or something seems really off.  Grants are approved by an individual, either the coordinator or a volunteer, and not by committee as was done in the past.  All incoming grants should be screened by the coordinator, who looks for fishy stuff and makes sure to take those grants before volunteers can take them.  If volunteers ever have questions about a grant, the coordinator is either present or locatable somewhere else in the building.  There are two main steps to our screening process: the first is to verify that the organization is legitimate and eligible and the second is to verify that the contact is associated with the organization.  The second is a recent addition after a few problems with unauthorized people using an organization's name to acquire hardware.
+A hardware grant begins when an organization requests a grant using an online form.  As soon as it is completed the coordinator and volunteers are alerted to its existence.  Grants are usually processed within a week, though the outside limit is two weeks.  The vast majority of hardware grants are approved.  For a grant to be rejected there has to be a good reason: it was a for-profit organization or an individual, we don't have or don't grant the technology that they need, they are located abroad, or something seems really off.  Grants are approved by an individual, either the coordinator or a volunteer, and not by committee as was done in the past.  Any "fishy" incoming grants should be left for or picked up in consultation with the coordinator.  If volunteers ever have questions about a grant, they should contact the coordinator.  There are two main steps to our screening process: the first is to verify that the organization is legitimate and eligible and the second is to verify that the contact is associated with the organization.  The second is a recent addition after a few problems with unauthorized people using an organization's name to acquire hardware.
-Once a Hardware Grant is approved, it is tracked using RT.  The grant shepherd is responsible for communicating with the grant recipient, informing them that they are approved, resolving unclear requests, and for gathering the necessary hardware.  For some types of hardware, there are wait lists.  Currently we have wait lists for laptops, printers, A/V items, and unicorn items.  We used to have waitlist for Mac items, and LCDs and CRTs, but current supply means that we don't need them right now.  The wait for a laptop is 3.5 to 4 months.  Organizations can only receive up to 3 laptops and 5 LCDs every 3 months.  Once all the items are ready, the grant shepherd contacts the representative from the organization to set up a pick up time.  While we encourage grantees to come in when their shepherd is available, they can also come during any time that the coordinator is available.  Sometimes grantees just show up, but this hasn't been a huge problem recently. After the items have been disbursed, the shepherd notes this in the database and in RT.
+Once a Hardware Grant is approved, it is tracked using RT.  The grant shepherd is responsible for communicating with the grant recipient, informing them that they are approved, resolving unclear requests, and for gathering the necessary hardware.  For some types of hardware, there are wait lists.  Currently we have wait lists for laptops, printers, A/V items, and unicorn items.  We used to have waitlist for Mac items, and LCDs and CRTs, but current supply means that we don't need them right now.  The wait for a laptop is 3.5 to 4 months.  Organizations can only receive up to 3 laptops every 3 months.  Once all the items are ready, the grant shepherd contacts the representative from the organization to set up a pick up time.  While we encourage grantees to come in when their shepherd is available, they can also come during any time that the coordinator is available.  Sometimes grantees just show up, but this hasn't been a huge problem recently. After the items have been disbursed, the shepherd notes this in the database and in RT.
 Three months after a ticket is closed, a grant recipient will receive a follow up survey.  This survey is to alert us to any problems that they may be having, to help us improve our process, and to gather testimonials and contact information for PR purposes.  We now have a question in the grant application that informs the recipient that the survey is required.  It's a short survey and doesn't take very long.

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 We are trying to work with PPS IT to take a sample of some of the common models donated by the City of Portland and test them with PPS's disk image.  If the tests are successful, then we can grant PPS schools the models that we tested.  The last time I e-mailed with Jed Gilchrist, Head of PPS IT, he said to get back in touch with them after September 20, when the IT staff will be done with the start-of-school chaos.
-We are also working with Oxford Houses of Oregon to determine a legitimate process of verification for Oxford Houses.  There is a ticket about this in RT.
+We are also working with Oxford Houses of Oregon to determine a legitimate process of verification for Oxford Houses.  There is a [http://todo.freegeek.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=24144 ticket about this in RT].
 Home bound grants--this is something that we were looking into several months ago, but it was panned as Free Geek was too busy to start a new program.  There is a wiki page about what this might look like in the Hardware Grants Category.

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 A hardware grant begins when an organization requests a grant using an online form.  As soon as it is completed the coordinator and volunteers are alerted to its existence.  Grants are usually processed within a week, though the outside limit is two weeks.  The vast majority of hardware grants are approved.  For a grant to be rejected there has to be a good reason: it was a for-profit organization or an individual, we don't have or don't grant the technology that they need, they are located abroad, or something seems really off.  Grants are approved by an individual, either the coordinator or a volunteer, and not by committee as was done in the past.  All incoming grants should be screened by the coordinator, who looks for fishy stuff and makes sure to take those grants before volunteers can take them.  If volunteers ever have questions about a grant, the coordinator is either present or locatable somewhere else in the building.  There are two main steps to our screening process: the first is to verify that the organization is legitimate and eligible and the second is to verify that the contact is associated with the organization.  The second is a recent addition after a few problems with unauthorized people using an organization's name to acquire hardware.
-Once a Hardware Grant is approved, it is tracked using RT.  The grant shepherd is responsible for communicating with the grant recipient, informing them that they are approved, resolving unclear requests, and for gathering the necessary hardware.  For some types of hardware, there are wait lists.  Currently we have wait lists for laptops, printers, A/V items, and unicorn items.  We used to have waitlist for Mac items, and LCDs and CRTs, but current supply means that we don't need them right now.  The wait for a laptop is 3.5 to 4 monnths.  Organizations can only receive up to 3 laptops and 5 LCDs every 3 months.  Once all the items are ready, the grant shepherd contacts the representative from the organization to set up a pick up time.  While we encourage grantees to come in when their shepherd is available, they can also come during any time that the coordinator is available.  Sometimes grantees just show up, but this hasn't been a huge problem recently. After the items have been disbursed, the shepherd notes this in the database and in RT.
+Once a Hardware Grant is approved, it is tracked using RT.  The grant shepherd is responsible for communicating with the grant recipient, informing them that they are approved, resolving unclear requests, and for gathering the necessary hardware.  For some types of hardware, there are wait lists.  Currently we have wait lists for laptops, printers, A/V items, and unicorn items.  We used to have waitlist for Mac items, and LCDs and CRTs, but current supply means that we don't need them right now.  The wait for a laptop is 3.5 to 4 months.  Organizations can only receive up to 3 laptops and 5 LCDs every 3 months.  Once all the items are ready, the grant shepherd contacts the representative from the organization to set up a pick up time.  While we encourage grantees to come in when their shepherd is available, they can also come during any time that the coordinator is available.  Sometimes grantees just show up, but this hasn't been a huge problem recently. After the items have been disbursed, the shepherd notes this in the database and in RT.
 Three months after a ticket is closed, a grant recipient will receive a follow up survey.  This survey is to alert us to any problems that they may be having, to help us improve our process, and to gather testimonials and contact information for PR purposes.  We now have a question in the grant application that informs the recipient that the survey is required.  It's a short survey and doesn't take very long.

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 ===Outreach===
-At this time, our main channels of outreach are the Free Geek tour, tabling events, and word-of-mouth.  I have not pursued an aggressive outreach strategy, because we haven't really had the necessarily materials to meet the current demand.  We definitely have more than enough systems, but it's only in the past few months that the available number of LCDs has come close to meeting demand.  And demand, in this case, is still regulated as we are only giving away 5 LCDs every three months per organization.  If we started giving away unlimited numbers, I don't know how long the supply would last.  Laptops are an entirely different story: we know that the demand from the organizations that currently know about us is much, much higher than the number of laptops we are able to refurbish for the grants program.
+At this time, our main channels of outreach are the Free Geek tour, tabling events, and word-of-mouth.  I have not pursued an aggressive outreach strategy, because we haven't really had the necessary materials to meet the current demand.  We definitely have more than enough systems, but it's only in the past few months that the available number of LCDs has come close to meeting demand.  And demand, in this case, is still regulated as we are only giving away 5 LCDs every three months per organization.  If we started giving away unlimited numbers, I don't know how long the supply would last.  Laptops are an entirely different story: we know that the demand from the organizations that currently know about us is much, much higher than the number of laptops we are able to refurbish for the grants program.
-Whether or not we should instate more active outreach activities depends greatly on the supply of available hardware.  We are currently working on trying to up the number of laptops we receive, but this is going to take a while, and there is also a potential problem with generating the human capacity to refurbish all of the those laptops.  So, having enough laptops to justify outreach seems like it will be a ways off.  If, however, the number of LCDs avaialble to grants continues to rise (and this could be affected if we up the Freekbox specs to include LCDs), it may make sense to start pursuing some outreach.
+Whether or not we should instate more active outreach activities depends greatly on the supply of available hardware.  We are currently working on trying to up the number of laptops we receive, but this is going to take a while, and there is also a potential problem with generating the human capacity to refurbish all of the those laptops.  So, having enough laptops to justify outreach seems like it will be a ways off.  If, however, the number of LCDs available to grants continues to rise (and this could be affected if we up the Freekbox specs to include LCDs), it may make sense to start pursuing some outreach.
 This is a really confusing section.  I apologize.--[[User:Elizabethwt|Elizabethwt]] 18:00, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

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 ''This should be done once a month.  Preferably when you are compiling the new list of recipients to be sent the survey.  (See above.)''
-. Login in to talon.  Ask someone who knows there way around the Free Geek wiki/server/maillist/RT forest to help you with this.
+. Login in to talon.  Ask someone who knows their way around the Free Geek wiki/server/maillist/RT forest to help you with this.
 . Go to usr/local/hardwaregrants

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 Home bound grants--this is something that we were looking into several months ago, but it was panned as Free Geek was too busy to start a new program.  There is a wiki page about what this might look like in the Hardware Grants Category.
-Artist grants--we currently have one continuous artist grant for Brian Mock, who makes sculptures out of small pieces of metal.  When he comes by, we generally take him around System Eval, the Build Room, and Recycling to gather any small pieces of metal (mostly screws) that he wants.  Read the wiki page on [[Artists Grants]] for more information on why we have artist grants.
+Artist grants--we currently have one continuous artist grant for Brian Mock, who makes sculptures out of small pieces of metal.  When he comes by, we generally take him around System Eval, the Build Room, and Recycling to gather any small pieces of metal (mostly screws) that he wants.  Read the wiki page on [[Artists Grants]] for more information on why we have artist grants. N.B. Requests from Film and TV companies go through [[Bulk Sales]]
 ==The Future==

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 *Use Wordpress to update the grant webpage.  www.freegeek.org/grants
-*Use Email to moderate grants and hardware grants tickets lists.
+*Use Email/Mailman to moderate grants and hardware grants tickets lists.
 *Use the wiki to update documentation about grants including the chart on what can and cannot grant out.

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 Whether or not we should instate more active outreach activities depends greatly on the supply of available hardware.  We are currently working on trying to up the number of laptops we receive, but this is going to take a while, and there is also a potential problem with generating the human capacity to refurbish all of the those laptops.  So, having enough laptops to justify outreach seems like it will be a ways off.  If, however, the number of LCDs avaialble to grants continues to rise (and this could be affected if we up the Freekbox specs to include LCDs), it may make sense to start pursuing some outreach.
-This is the a really confusing section.  I apologize.--[[User:Elizabethwt|Elizabethwt]] 18:00, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
+This is a really confusing section.  I apologize.--[[User:Elizabethwt|Elizabethwt]] 18:00, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
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