Hardware Grants

Free Geek has a hardware grants program in which we give hardware to organizations who request it. Our emphasis is on computers, but we are able to grant out other things as well. See the grants page on Free Geek's website for more info.

Who receives hardware grants?

What types of organizations does Free Geek grant hardware to? Grants are made to organizations, specifically not-for-profit organizations, and not to individuals. We grant hardware to non-profit and social change organizations local to Portland, Oregon; we cannot provide for any kind of shipping to other locations. You must be able to come to Free Geek and pick up the granted hardware.

To be more specific, Free Geek grants hardware to:

• Non-profit organizations
• Schools
• Churches
• Community centers
• Social change organizations
• Worker collectives

Free Geek does not give out hardware grants to individuals or partisan political organizations. We can't grant to partisan organizations due to our 501(c)3 status. Our policy on individual grants was formed in response to past experiences with "passthrough" grants (which are essentially grants that we give to organizations so they can in turn give them to someone else). We stopped doing those because of the technical support issues involved with providing people computers when they hadn't been adequately taught to use the operating system that we provide with them. We instead focus our grants program on providing infrastructure for organizations (computers for an office, for example, or for a public lab setting). Additionally, we feel that giving individuals the opportunity to earn their computers, rather than simply giving them computers, can provide them with a sense of empowerment and responsible ownership that is oftentimes infinitely more valuable than the physical product itself.

What we grant out

The items we are able to grant out depend on our supply, which changes from time to time.

What we grant out easily

• PCs
• Monitors
• Keyboards
• Mice
• Power cords
• Network cables
• Printers
• Mousepads
• Short to medium length networking cable
• Headphones

Uncommon items

These items need to be requested from area supervisors, such as in advanced testing or in Mac build.

• Network devices
• Mac systems
• IDE Hard drives with greater than 20GB capacity
• SDRAM and RAMBUS

Limited Items

As of 11/3/2009, the RAD committee decided to reimpose limits to LCDs and laptops.

• LCDs
• Laptops

What we do not grant out

We do not get enough of these items to grant out.

• Projectors
• Speakers
• Long network cables

Does the organization's location matter?

Yes and no. We simply don't have the means to ship the types of hardware typically requested in grants, so we are limited to providing hardware grants to organizations that are able to pick up grants from us. However, we are more than willing to provide hardware to organizations in any location of the world as long as they can provide a local contact that can pick up hardware from us and handle the rest.

How are grants approved/denied?

In general, if an organization does not fit into one of the types listed above (e.g. an average for-profit business), its grant request will be denied. However, sometimes we receive grant requests from qualifying organizations that ask for more than we can provide in a given month, or have a need on an ongoing basis. In that case, it is necessary to contact the requester to discuss the details of the request and bring down the amount of requested hardware to a reasonable level.

Hardware grants volunteers, interns, and Free Geek staff members work together to approve and deny grants. One "grant shepherd" is responsible for contacting and disbursing equipment to each organization.

This is a useful link for verifying non-profit status of entities: [1]

See Using RT for Hardware Grants to learn how to navigate RT.

Can I get involved?

Yes! Free Geek is always looking for reliable volunteers interested in facilitating hardware grants. You will play the role of grant shepherd. Essentially, you will:

1. Participate in approving or denying grants using the database and business registry search.
   • If we have granted computers to them before (find this info out using the database), we can do it again!
   • Look for the word "non profit" in the business registry to determine their eligibility.
2. Determine if we have all the information we need to proceed with the grant, and ask for more if we need it. See Hardware Grants Responses.
3. Update the status of the grant via RT.
4. Arrange appointments with requester(s) to have them come in and pick up equipment.
   • Give the requester(s) the equipment approved for the grant.
   • Give the requester(s) the Ubuntu new user FAQ (located next to the completed systems) if they are getting computers.
5. Fill out paperwork appropriately for data entry (or disburse the equipment yourself in the database, if you have access to it).
6. If the organization received systems, follow up by sending them this link or copy/paste text from this link: Resource Packet For Grants

If you are a volunteer or intern starting hardware grants, use the training template to get started.

Hardware Grants Goals

Currently, hardware grants needs:

• Outreach to more organizations
  • Go to a tabling event!!
• Follow-up process using a survey
• PR process for testimonials & stories