One year plan 2010

The staff is developing a one year plan. We're going around to each area and asking for input. The responses are being collated here.

1. First we're evaluating our areas and where they are at currently.
2. From this we're setting goals and expectations for one year out.
3. Then we state the expected tasks to be done in order to meet those goals, things that may stand in the way, etc.

We'll want to look for resource problems and resolve them. For instance if all departments expected to grow in floor space in the next year, and no one expected to shrink, we'd have to negotiate who should grow, who should stay the same size, etc.

This is a draft document, but once completed, it should be usable to predict income trends, and expected costs.

Main Gizmo Flow

Pickups

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Receiving and Hardware Donations

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Prebuild

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Sales

Online Sales

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Other Program

Education and Classes

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GAP

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Hardware Grants

Goals

More volunteer involvement, less staff involvement.

Problem: There is currently an "over-allocation" of staff hours put to grants. This week, from 9/8/2009 to 9/12/2009, there are a total of 21 scheduled staff hours towards the hardware grants program. This number is blurred by the fact that many staff use that hardware grants time for other administration. Debra Hubbard also volunteers semi-regularly on the Hardware Grants committee. She logged four hours last week under "outreach," which I believe is grant time. There are currently only 39 open hardware grants tickets. This roughly evens out to each open grant taking 2 staff hours per week. My estimate is that one grant may take up to this amount of time TOTAL, not per week (for example, if a grant is open for two weeks, it may require an hour per week each week). This is a guess. I work 8 hours of hardware grants per week and currently own and (I feel) successfully manage 21 grants. A couple are stalled, but I could manage about 20 entirely active grants with 8 hours a week.

What stands in the way/what needs to happen: Before staff hours can be taken off of hardware grants and volunteer/intern/Americorps hours are (hopefully) added, the hardware grants committee needs to redefine limitations. The "Can I get involved?" section of the grants wiki is accurate in detailing the responsibility of someone working hardware grants (http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/Hardware_Grants#Can_I_get_involved.3F), EXCEPT for one missing detail: it is difficult to determine 1) if non-profits REALLY need what they are asking for, and 2) if we have and can disburse what they need. This is not in the "Can I get involved?" section, probably because it is difficult to pinpoint and describe at this point in time. If the hardware grants committee put together some sort of limitations guideline (eg. 1 laptop per 10 people within an organization, 50 systems per org, etc. etc.) we would be able to have more volunteer & intern involvement.

Once limitations are established, I feel that post-builders and/or interns would be suitable for grants.

Give out more grants!

Numbers according to the database (no reliable data from 2006 and earlier)

Number of hardware grants given out by year and gizmo type

2007

40 Laptops

629 Systems

2008

77 Laptops

494 Systems

2009

234 Laptops

1056 Systems

Problem: Recycling too many and giving out too few systems! This year we have already given out more laptops than 2007 & 2008 combined and almost more systems than 2007 & 2008 combined. This is great! However, we could be giving out more. I estimate that we will have given away 1200 systems in 2009 by the end of the year, and because of the interest in the build program AND the amount of computers we recycle, we could double that number by 2010 with a potential change in system specification. The current low-ends that we sell & grant out are more than reasonable for web-surfing/lab computers. Non-profits use their computers for these purposes most commonly:

1. As a teacher tool for recording grades or doing powerpoints with a class
2. In administrative offices
3. In a lab setting

Low end computers are, in my opinion, reasonable for office and lab work.

What stands in the way/what needs to happen: Not enough grant requests for systems! Some community outreach could change this.

Publicize the awesome grants work we're doing! (This is in the works, though.)

Problem: RT is somewhat inaccurate and has no spreadsheet or easily table creation function, as far as I know, which would connect grants to Wordpress.

What stands in the way/what needs to happen: Tony is working on some sort of Wordpress thing to document grants. This will add a new layer of work to hardware grants committee members, but it should be more than worth it.

Library and Internet Access

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Administrative Services

Facilities

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Front Desk

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General Office

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Fundraising

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Staffing

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Warehouse

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