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

(no answer yet)

Receiving and Hardware Donations

(no answer yet)

Prebuild

(no answer yet)

Recycling

Ban certification process, which includes more than likely ISO-14001 certification, which is a big deal

getting printer deconstruction optimized,

volunteer intern training more streamlined

keeping up with incoming recycling stream,

become an official training place for job skills (like POIC) with other groups, who pay people to come and help, not sure if we can survive with only volunteers

Time and space

to get BAN certification/ISO 14001 cert. one of us will have to facilitate the process with an auditor, big time commitment as well as monetary costs toward the audit ( estimated $4000)

more printer shifts- more staff time in printers

staff time to recruit interns

develop partnership with other groups to get workers in to the warehouse

Production

Build

I want to expand the build program to make it as accessible to as many people as possible.

One solution: have a full build room for every shift; that way, volunteers spend less time waiting for next build shift; volunteers complete the program faster allowing more people to cycle through the program; build can then direct volunteers to other, post-build areas of FG thereby allowing other programs to grow.

How accomplish?

Build will need more space - more workstations, more room between the workstations - they are too close now. One possible solution for gaining more space: move LCD monitor testing to whse. It will also need more infrastructure (network connections, monitors/keyboards/mice/speakers) if we have more workstations. And it will need more shelving, storage space for components, parts, machine storage for builders from one shift to next (build already needs this, one-year from now we will need more of it).

FG will need to have better inflow of systems - the partnership programs will help; PR about FG and our partnership programs will help bring in new partners.

FG will need to have better outflow of systems - having a hardware grants coordinator working closely with volunteers will allow us to give away systems regularly. PR will need to do a better job of letting community know what we have to give and how we go about giving it. And increasing the adoption program would mean being able to give away more freek boxes; this will also mean we need more volunteers in the adoption program which means all areas of Free Geek will need to grow so we can put more volunteers to work earning their adoption boxes.

Laptops

Ten laptop classes per week, preferably full of reliable, high-caliber volunteers

Staffing, i.e. having enough staff to teach the classes

Flexible coverage for vacations

Staffing, i.e. having enough staff to cover and not having their schedules be inflexible

Revamped physical layout to efficiently accommodate more volunteers and gizmo flow

Decision on laptops storage - will/can we build a space in the Laptop Build area? if so, when? This is probably reliant on Darryl and the Production team discussing feasibility and timelines.

Improved documentation

• improved volunteer educational experience (Laptop Build volunteer manual, FAQ's, etc.)
• overhaul of wiki pages in Laptops category

More of my admininstration time devoted to this, which also means less of my admininstration time elsewhere.

Macintoshes

Goal-Mac eval can move into the current laptop storage area and there can be a daily scheduled Mac Eval volunteer shift. This will free up area for other programs and improve the flow from receiving to Macbuild (thus increasing production and volunteer involvement). This would also mean an end to paying staff members 1-4 hours daily to take apart Macs in eval.

Challenges- Have to wait for laptops to move into new area. There is not always a steady flow of Macs through eval.

Goal-Mac build can adopt a similar setup as laptops by working on one type of Mac per shift. This could potentially double production.

Challenges- This would work fabulously for a while, but the increase in production would eventually overtake what we get in receiving (unless we secure steady Mac donations). But, the store wouldn't be able to sell as many as we produce. Another issue is that Mac laptops take a really long time to deal with and there would always be carryovers to the next shift. We need a better tracking system for the status of unfinished systems and a place to put them while they are in progress. Also, our main volunteer, Roy is resistant to this idea.

Goal- There are piles of Mac systems (especially laptops) that sit around for long periods of time that need a new part, or need fixing, or need recycling, but are held onto for the hope that someone will somehow make them work someday. These systems could be sold in bulk for parts. This could bring in money and save space and volunteer time.

Challenges- we would need a staff member to research and carryout the sales of these systems. Possibly an online sales coordinator? Or we could create a partnership with a local Mac business.

Goal- Make it possible to sell Macs in our store with Mac OS. This would greatly increase the value of Macs in our store. It would also make building Macs astronomically easier. Production would go way up.

Challenges- Have to work out a legal agreement with Macintosh. May not be possible. There could also be cultural ramifications for not using open source software even though the move would still be in line with our mission. The other challenge related to this goal is that MAC OS 10 no longer supports the PPC systems, and now only supports intel systems. This makes older systems (what we have) way less desirable. We may get to the point where we have to recycle huge numbers of PPC systems and wait until we start getting the current systems in receiving. It's hard to predict when this lull in Mac systems would occur and how long it would last.

Goal- Have 3-4 volunteers at every Mac shift, including a skilled volunteer instructor. Make sure that the instructor is supported by a staff member and that there is always something for these volunteers to do.

Challenges- We need to make sure that we have a working system in place to be able to do this. We need highly technically skilled volunteers to be instructors. We also need an outlet for the increased production. The other concern is what happens when/if we don't have enough systems coming in for the volunteers.

Printers

Advanced Printer Testing (for post builders)

More recycling shifts for the area

Room in the classroom for tested printers (Spacies)

Bulk sellers Postings on Craigs list, More e-Bay sells(research)

In order for Advanced Testing of printers to be fully operational power and networking will need to beadded to the area. This is being discussed with Action at this time.

Adding a shift or extending an existing shift in printers might help with the approxamite 5 Gaylord backlog that is created ea. month.

At this time 2 more shelves for storing tested printers that are ready for the store or grant in the classroom. Somthing in being discussed with Spacies and Action at this time.

I would like printers to contribute to online sales as well as attract more bulk sellers. In order to do this I must communicate with someone who knows how to give our information out on Craig's list. Research in to what kind of printer parts people perches from e-Bay that is small enough to send and easy to remove from a printer with out being broken is needed as well.

I hope these are not to vague but vague enough to work.

Servers

server eval/build

1-2 weekly server build workshops with 4-6 volunteers each, run by volunteer instructors.

this should keep the space used for server eval/build no larger than it is now, and possibly even reduce the amount of space used, as equipment is more quickly triaged and built or rejected. should produce an additional 5 servers per week available for infrastructure, hardware grants, thrift store and/or other sales, and possibly valuable spare server parts for sales.

server eval/build will need half of the build workshop area 1-2 times per week. need to ensure this doesn't unduly hurt the build program.

documentation for server build is difficult, as servers tend to be very proprietary (perhaps moreso than laptops or macs) and quirky to work with (getting the right ram can be a hair-pulling experience). help with free-form documentation and ensuring volunteers in the program who can handle minimal, flexible documentation.

server room

move all servers to racks, reducing the space devoted to servers by 30%. possibly use this extra space for storage of ready-to-deploy pre-built infrastructure systems (servers, desktops, thin-clients, etc.).

network infrastructure

re-wire south part of building, and keep an updated physical map of cabling.

Sales

Thrift Store

Open more days

Coming up with a way to be open and take donations, but not have the whole building open. Staffing for presorting (hardware donations) of

goods accumulated in that time.

Online sales moved back into the black and then some

Time (staffing). Online sales can easily be moved into the black, but creating a real revenue stream out of it will require a lot of work. Mercenary salesmen might "prime the pump" to make it more palatable to be more aggressive about expanding the program. My basic plan is to wholly cull useful information from street-hustling mercenaries about which post-production stream items have the best bang for the buck.

Bin sales out of the warehouse (currently just safari) expanded

Time (staffing) and space (in the warehouse). We could start with a second, third (etc) safari. This ultimately needs to be an every day every hour pursuit on a per-pound basis (like goodwill bins). The space may never come in our existing building, but some hope exists if the flow of desktops and CRTs diminishes significantly.

Online Sales

(no answer yet)

Other Program

Education and Classes

(no answer yet)

GAP

(no answer yet)

Hardware Grants

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

(no answer yet)

Tech Support

Getting tech support open during all of Free Geek's open hours.

For the first goal, I need to build up a large enough volunteer base so that the hours can be covered. Because of training issues, this cannot be done too quickly, but I think a year out is reasonable. I think it would require at least 10 volunteers for that many hours (I have 6 now), of which half at any one time would need to be well trained. Of course the time could be covered by paid staff, but I think that would be less desirable. Paid staff should be oversight and backup and can be doing something else and check in as necessary. I would expect a program of that size would needs *some* more staff time.

Developing a cross-training program with tech support and build, offering time in tech support as part of the build training program.

For the second goal, it just needs development time and working out the bugs

We *may* need more space (about 20% more), although spreading tech support over more hours could mitigate that.

Administrative Services

Facilities

(no answer yet)

Front Desk

(no answer yet)

General Office

(no answer yet)

Fundraising

(no answer yet)

Staffing

(no answer yet)

Warehouse

(no answer yet)

Partnerships

Free Geek gets an institutional donor to give money and computers, thereby setting a precedent that can be used in future negotiations.

Free Geek get 2 or 3 more large institutional donors with an eye to tailoring our solicitations towards donors who can improve the quality of our stream.

Nothing but time. It takes a lot of time to negotiate with an institutional donor, sometimes as long as two years. For this reason, a

half dozen or so partnerships should be pursued at all times. We need to position ourselves to compete directly with a the Dell buyback program, including considering taking deposits for pickups from large institutional donors (as dell does).