Overview

Free Geek has a Hardware Grants program! What does this mean? Free Geek, as you may or may not already know, receives a lot of computer junk that eventually gets turned into computer funk (the good kind, not the bad) by our awesome volunteers. However, we have and make so much stuff that we can't possibly sell it all in our thrift store or give it away to our volunteers. What could we possibly do with all these computers we are slowly burying ourselves with? Easy: give them to folks in need via our Hardware Grants program!

Who receives hardware grants?

What types of organizations does Free Geek grant hardware to? From the Grants page:

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. Here's why: we used to give out what we call "passthrough" grants (which are essentially grants that we give to organizations so they can in turn give them to someone else) but stopped doing so 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 types of hardware does Free Geek give out?

We can give out a lot of different stuff. The list on the Grants page is a bit out of date. The following list is by no means complete, but we can readily give out:

GrantBoxen
CRT Monitors
64MB - 512MB sticks of SDRAM (quantity becomes limited as module size increases)
Keyboards
Mice
Computer cases
Floppy, CDROM or Zip drives
Small (~4-10GB) hard drives
Ethernet, sound or video cards
Short to medium length networking cable

Essentially, if we've got lots of it, we're willing to grant it out. We do grant out rarer things when they are available, such as:

Laptops
Projectors
LCD Monitors
Enterprise-level equipment

Keep in mind that, overall, that the amount of equipment we can give out per grant is limited by what we have on hand. At the moment, we can give an organization up to six GrantBoxen per month. Laptops are limited to two per year.

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?

At the moment, grant approval/denial is at the discretion of the grant shepherd. 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 requestor to discuss the details of the request and bring down the amount of requested hardware to a reasonable level. It helps to stress that:

We can only provide so much equipment per month (or year in the case of laptops)
It is very difficult to find rare equipment (e.g. projectors) in working order, so they shouldn't expect us to be able to provide it
The equipment we provide is intended for infrastructure, so it shouldn't be given away

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:

Participate in approving or denying grants
Determine if we have all the information we need to proceed with the grant, and ask for more if we need it
Update the status of the grant via RT
Arrange appointments with requestors to have them come in and pick up equipment
Give requestors the equipment approved for the grant
Give the grantee outreach documents (located near the finished grantboxen). These will most likely include: brochures, tear-off sheets, FAQs, and contact sheets for how to contact us if the organization's staff would like a 10-minute talk on how Free Geek can help them and their clients.
Fill out paperwork appropriately for data entry (or disburse the equipment yourself in the database, if you have access to it)

It might sound like a lot of work, but it really isn't. Plus, you can't beat that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you give an organization something they can definitely use. It's like being Santa Claus plus the Easter Bunny rolled into one everyday! If you'd like to get involved, simply let a staff member know so they can take create a RT account for you. Once you have one, read this page: Using RT for Hardware Grants. That's about it!

Hardware Grants

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