Overview Time Line

This time line was started as a brain storm at the July 1, 2008 Priorities meeting. [1]. It was updated at the February 3, 2009 Priorities meeting.

2008

Start

Timeline started in June/July 2008

• Add propagation hours -- Done in 2008
• Hire Prebuild intern -- Altered in 2008: Prebuild now fully covered

End of summer

• Remove Store internship -- Done in 2008
• Add a second Store Coordinator -- Done in 2008
• Redistribute hours creating better staff coverage in receiving. (AKA responsible receiving) -- Done in 2008

Thanksgiving

November 27

• Phases we'll start this year:
  • Holiday Store hours {Thanksgiving - Jan 2009} -- Postponed in 2008: until production catches up with demand
  • Solidify more corporate donations {start - Jan 1 2009} -- Changed to "Actively recruit more corporate contracts" (but more corporate pickups are already happening)
  • Outreach to schools {Thanksgiving - July 1 2009} -- ???

• In the last quarter of 2008 these things also happened:
  • Economic Meltdown caused a crash in commodities prices, lowering recycling income
    • This helped lead to The Weirdness starting early
  • We dropped our monitor fees to $7 (due to approaching eWaste legislation)
  • We had a few large collection events
  • We sent out a fundraising mailing (basically a dud)
  • We participated in the Give!Guide program at Willamette Week (a modest success for us)
  • A contract with the City of Portland went into effect. We are now getting regular deliveries of computers from the City most every week.

2009

eWaste legislation kicks in

Jan 1, 2009

Digital TV conversion

Along with eWaste legislation will lead to more TVs received

Could happen in February. May be postponed a few months

The Weirdness

So many variables and unknowns it will be difficult to make predictions. This was anticipated to start around Jan 1 and end three to six months later. It actually came early, due to the economic meltdown and seems to have ended by February 1, 2009. The one big unknown is when the economy will normalize.

• Phases we'll start this year:
  • Recruit more volunteers as needed and of whatever kinds needed {already started, goes until the end of time?}
  • Capital campaign for building {starts after economic normalization, or a solid big corporate sponsor, or eviction and lasts until we move in to new building}
  • Actively solicit more corporate contracts {Jan 1, 2008 - end of year (or ongoing)}

Establish Free Geek Intergalactic, Inc.

Create a legal entity to manage Free Geek startups and trademark enforcement issues. This entity would evenutally be controlled by multiple Free Geeks, not just ourselves.

Potentially do this in the fall.

2010

Capital campaign coordinator???

We might decide to hire someone to help coordinate a capital campaign. Currently, even having a capital campaign is delayed until the economy normalizes or other events force our hand.

2012

Move into new building (end of lease), around Feb 2012, give or take

If the economic crisis continues, we might find this date being put off.

Lessons Learned

The holiday hours attempt showed us that we need to focus on more and better production in order to make it reasonable to open the thrift store for more hours.

The economic meltdown led us to estimate less income from recycling. It also contributed to a failure of our fundraising mailing. And it makes it a bad time for a capital campaign. It also may postpone the gentrification of our neighborhood, giving us more time to find/build another building.

The eWaste legislation led to more TVs being received. It also adds more bureaucracy. We will expect less fee income, but we'll start getting reimbursements.

Outreach to targeted volunteers (volunteer interns) has turned out to be a much bigger boon than anticipated.

Collection events that are too large can grind us to a halt without providing much useful stuff. We learned to target smaller such events that will meet specific outreach goals.

Potential Positions to consider

Some paid positions to consider based on what we've learned. (List is likely incomplete.)

• Laptop coordinator
• Production intern
• Recycling intern
• Store intern
• Accounts juggler

Other things that could cost us staffing time (money):

• Cross training
• More hours for propagation

Other expense related targets:

• Pay raise
• Outsourcing some administrative stuff (ie admin of retirement plan, etc.)