Final Application for Ongoing Status as a Free Geek

This is a page concerning a policy or procedure in development.
Once fleshed out, we'll consider it for adoption as official policy at Free Geek.

This is part of the the Free Geek Franchise process, whereby a Free Geek startup organzation can be recognized as an official Free Geek or an official Affiliate of Free Geek.

This application is for groups that have already been granted preliminary status. If this does not apply to your group, please refer to the Free Geek Startup Franchise Application for further information.

Background Research and Development Plan

• Have you made contact with local recycling partners?
• What facilities will you likely be using for disposal of e-waste?
  • Have you researched their recycling practices?
    • Do they send e-waste overseas? Where?
    • Do they use prison labor?
    • What do they process that ends up in a landfill?
• Do you know how much it will cost you to recycle:
  • Batteries?
  • Monitors?
• Do you know how much you are likely to make off of
  • Processors?
  • Circuit boards?
• Have you made contacts with other community organizations...
  • that work with free or open source software?
  • that work with communities of people who lack technology or technical skills?
• Volunteer recruitment
  • Do you already have volunteers that are willing to work on a weekly basis?
    • How many volunteers?
    • How many hours per week?
  • Which areas of your organization have enough volunteers?
  • Which areas need more?
  • How do you plan to recruit more volunteers?
• Start up funding
  • How much startup funding do you already have?
  • How much will rent for your initial space likely cost?
  • How do you plan to raise more startup funds?

Infrastructure

• Your own infrastructure:
  • Do you need hardware to help you get started?
    • If so, do you know how to apply for a grant from the mothership?
  • Do you understand what software the other Free Geeks are using for infrastructure? (Free Geek in Portland has a Software Overview page.)

New Questions

For us to be able to determine whether to allow you to use the Free Geek name, we need to know if your organization is non-heirarchical and democratically-run (link to some relevant documentation of what this means). The following questions are intended first and foremost to help us understand how your organization is run and the culture and feel of the place so we can help you. They're also a good exercise for you, especially if you don't have much experience working with democratically-run workplaces, to figure out what such an organization looks like.

• Who signed (or will sign) the following documents (if you have or are applying for them)?
  • lease for space
  • articles of incorporation
  • bank account
  • bylaws
  • loan
  • foundation grant application
• Describe your role in the organization.
• Who is (or will be) answering questions from the general public?
• Describe how your decision making process will change as you grow?
• How many people do you anticipate will be on your paid staff?
• Which will you be using to make decisions, formal consensus or majority rule or some other process?
  • Why?
• How do you determine who will be in your main decision making group?
• Do you have experienced meeting facilitators working with your group? If not, how will you recruit them?
• What is your mission statement?
• How do you encourage volunteer participation?

Startup Plan

Please attach your startup plan document.