Corporate Donation (PPS)

Program Basics

• Program Name: Corporate Donation Program
• Program Description:

One of Free Geek’s ongoing problems is the cyclic flow of incoming boxen. Sometimes the building is bursting with boxen everywhere, leaving hardly enough room to walk in the aisles, and sometimes there are so few boxen that there are not even enough for a full eval session.

The purpose of the Corporate Donations will be to develop and maintain a steady flow of higher-level incoming boxen for the build program, in an attempt to flatten the curve of the number of incoming boxen.

This program primarily meets program needs in that it will attempt to maintain a reliable supply of boxen for the Build Program. The program might generate income via additional bulk sales or store sales, but that is not the primary purpose.

It is important to note that this program CANNOT be implemented until a “Pickup” program is in place. Small corporate clients will insist that the boxen be picked up. However, hopefully the fees associated with picking up the boxen will cover the cost of picking up the boxen

• What best describes this program? in this order
  1. Primarily meets program needs (expected to cost more money than it makes)
  2. Primarily income generating (expected to make money for Free Geek)

• Why does Free Geek need this program?

to smooth the flow of incoming boxes

Job Position Basics

• Would there be a dedicated staff position associated with this program? YES

This program would require a new job title. However, the program could be started by volunteer(s). Once the program is successful, Free Geek would probably want a fulltime person handling the task.

• Position Title: Corporate Donations Coordinator.

• Job Description:

Contact local small to medium size enterprises and attempt to obtain commitments from these enterprises to give all of their newly retired computers to Free Geek. If a contract were required, the CDC would administer the creation and signing of the contract. The CDC would maintain ongoing relationships with the corporate clients and would act as liaison between the corporate clients and Free Geek. The job would have a large problem-solving component.

To start with, the CDC would be mostly a sales job, selling the value of Free Geek’s services to corporate IT departments. Clearly, there will be competition from other, for-profit e-recyclers, which will make this a tough sales job.

Financial costs

• What are the expected financial staffing costs of the program? (Include all costs to the organization such as salary, payroll taxes, and benefits.)

The first cost associated with this program will be the cost of the “Pickup” program, which must be implemented before or concurrent with the corporate donations program. Again, hopefully, the pickup program will pay for itself.

• What other costs are associated with the program? ()

The second cost will be the CDC. As the program becomes bigger, this position would have to make a transition from a volunteer to an employed position. Selling is a very difficult job, and success at it should be rewarded directly. Perhaps the CDC could be paid a small percentage of the fees collected from the corporate clients, in the same way as the e-day people are paid a commission. This would mean that the net cost to Free Geek would be zero.

• If there will be a dedicated staff position, how much time would be needed for training?
  • How much time would existing staff need to put in? ______@______ hours
  • How time would existing volunteers need to put in? ______@______ hours
• Once the program is up and running how many staff how many hours per week would it take?
  • In paid staff time? ______@______ hours/week
  • In volunteer time? ______@______ hours/week

Drawbacks

The only serious drawback is that if this program is successful, then less of the machines that come into the front door will be rebuilt, and more of those boxen will be sold to bulk recyclers. This could be seen as a change in mission by some people.

Benefits

1. Flattening the curve of incoming boxen.
2. Presumably raising the level of boxen being built, since the income boxen will presumably be of a higher level.
3. More boxen available for bulk sales.
4. More desktops and laptops of a higher level available for sale in the store

Measuring Success

Success would be more corporate boxen coming in on a regular bases, with a reasonable expectation of those boxen continuing to arrive in the future.