Handling Large Donations at Receiving

If a large donation comes in, it is likely coming in from a business and requires a little special attention. These instructions should help everything run smoothly. It is best if a staff person or an experienced core volunteer handles much of this.

Before they unload anything

Find out:

• Is the person delivering the stuff from the company, or are they a delivery service of some sort?
  • If they are a delivery service, we need contact information from the company. (Give to the front desk.)
• Make sure they know about the monitor fee.
• Ask if they know about the suggested donations.
• Will they be paying by check or cash? Or will they need to get an invoice?
• If they need to be invoiced:
  • Who is the contact person? (Give the name and phone number to the front desk)
  • Do they know the billing address? (Give to front desk)
  • Does the company require a purchase order to pay the invoice? (If so, give the PO to the fornt desk.)
• Do they have a list of the items they are donating? (This can help you in keeping track of what's being donated.)

We may want to have them check in with this information at the Front Desk before unloading.

After unloading

The Front Desk needs an itemized list of donations. If they brought this list along, fill out the number of monitors on a regular receiving ticket and then write "see attached list". Give both the receiving ticket and the itemized list to the Front Desk. This procedure save us data entry time and the donators seem to like their list stapled to FG's receipt.

Arranging with the Warehouse and Evaluation

Monitors, systems, and printers that come in in large quanities can have a major effect on System Evaluation, Monitor Burn In, and Printerland. As soon as you have an idea of how much stuff is going to those areas, communicate with the staff person in charge so they can make accomodations. For instance, System Eval might want to sample the systems and determine where they should all be stacked (which might not be in the normal place.)

Get help

Unloading a large truck can be exhausting if one or two people try to do it. But there's no reason we can't ask builders, recyclers, or system eval volunteers to pitch in and give a hand.