Hardware Grants Summary

Hardware Grants Summary

Hardware Grants: How A Grant Becomes A Reality

A hardware grant begins when an organization requests a grant using an online form. As soon, as it is completed the coordinator and volunteers are alerted to its existence. Grants are usually processed within a week, though the outside limit is two weeks. The vast majority of hardware grants are approved. For a grant to be rejected there has to be a good reason: it was a for-profit organization or an individual, we don't have or don't grant the technology that they need, they are located abroad, or something seems really off. Grants are approved by an individual, either the coordinator or a volunteer, and not by committee as I believe was done in the past. All incoming grants are screened by the coordinator, who looks for fishy stuff and makes sure to take those grants before volunteers can take them. If volunteers ever have questions about a grant, the coordinator is either present or locatable somewhere else in the building. There are two main steps to our screening process: the first is to verify that the organization is legitimate and eligible and the second is to verify that the contact is associated with the organization. The second is a recent addition after a few problems with unauthorized people using an organization's name to acquire hardware.

Once a Hardware Grant is approved, it is tracked using RT. The grant shepherd is responsible for communicating with the grant recipient, informing them that they are approved, resolving unclear requests, and for gathering the necessary hardware. For some types of hardware, there are wait lists. Currently we have wait lists for laptops printers, A/V items, and unicorn items. We used to have waitlist for Mac items, and LCDs and CRTs, but current supply means that we don't need them right now. The wait for a laptop is 3.5 to 4 monnths. Organizations can only receive up to 3 laptops and 4 LCDs every 3 months. Once all the items are ready, the grant shepherd contacts the representative from the organization to set up a pick up time. While we encourage grantees to come in when their shepherd is available, they can also come during any time that the coordinator is available. Sometimes grantees just show up, but this hasn't been a huge problem recently. After the items have been disbursed, the shepherd notes this in the database and in RT.

Three months after a ticket is closed, a grant recipient will receive a follow up survey. This survey is to alert us to any problems that they may be having, to help us improve our process, and to gather testimonials and contact information for PR purposes. We now have a question in the grant application that informs the recipient that the survey is required. It's a short survey and doesn't take very long.

Things You Will Need To Know How To Do

• Build computers. Do the build program.

• Use e-mail. Hopefully you already know how to do this.

• Use RT. Using RT for Hardware Grants

• Approve and deny grants. How to approve/deny grants

• Enter contacts and disbursements into the database.

• Use Google docs to update wait lists and allocate hardware from the wait lists. Hardware Grants Wait Lists

• Use Google Calendar to update the intern schedule and schedule pick ups.

• Use LimeSurvey to send out 3 month Check Up Survey and edit the survey. http://freegeek.limequery.com/admin/admin.php

• Use Wordpress to make weekly blog posts about grants we disbursed.

• Use Wordpress to update the grant application. www.freegeek.org/grants/apply

• Use Wordpress to update the grant webpage. www.freegeek.org/grants

• Use Iceweasel to moderate grants and hardware grants tickets lists.

• Use the wiki to update documentation about grants including the chart on what can and cannot grant out.

• Access Grant and Hardware Grants Tickets moderator interface (ooh big word) to manage lists.

Logins And Accounts You Will Need

• Free Geek e-mail
• Gmail (to manage calendars, documents and I strongly advise you forward your e-mail to Gmail. The hardware grant tickets list is a high traffic list.)
• RT
• Database
• Wiki account
• Lime Survey (your username will be sophia as limeservice does not allow you to transfer surveys from one user to another).
• Wordpress
• Moderator position/subscription to grants and hardware grants tickets lists

The Volunteer Experience

The hardware grant department depends greatly on highly skilled volunteers to process the current volume of grants. I currently have about 40 grants, with the remaining 90 being split between the 5 members of the hardware grants team. Being a good hardware grants volunteer is not easy; it takes both a technical skill set, an ease with people, professional communication skills, and a lot of patience with processes that are necessary to keep things organized.

About a month ago, I conducted check ins with each of the 5 members of my grant team.

The Future

One thing that is noticeably absent from our screening process is that we don't judge organizations based on their political or social values. This allows us to serve a diverse population, but it also seems like somewhere we would have to draw the line. For example, would we grant to Exodus International, an organization that provides "help for leaving homosexuality"? This hasn't come up yet, but it's an interesting question.