Are there organizations that help with donated equipment?

Summary:

There are programs that do this in several cities.

Answer:

In February 2001, Dale Tersey provided an update to the information he first provided to the FAQ in 1995 (!):

I was updating sites who referenced our program and have found some really OLD listings out there :) One of the listings I came
across was some information I submitted back in 1995. Unfortunately, most of the programs listed are either out of business, or have changed phone numbers of locations. Unfortunately, dealing in used, donated computers is a lot like dealing in three week old vegetables, the technology is halfway out the door by the time you get it donated.

For computer recycling, two of the best sites out there are Charlie DiBella's at http://www.infomagic.com/~abyte/list.htm that is already listed, and the CompuMentor site http://www.techsoup.org/articles.cfm?topicid=1&topic=Hardware, where there is a comprehensive list of providers of Recycled and Refurbished Hardware under "Resources."

As an update to the 1995 info I can report that as of spring 2001, the level of equipment being donated is generally high end 486 and early Pentiums of the 60 to 166 Mhz range. The things that are still in short supply are machines with CD-Rom drives.

For a start-up nonprofit without a lot of resources, I have a few tips that are still true for finding older equipment to do the
basic chores for office and client use.

Call the Information Systems Manager at your nearest hospitals. They usually upgrade to stay abreast of the latest technology and may have a basement full of surplus older grade computers. They are also very good at donating to nonprofits.

Call larger law firms in your local area and ask to talk to the computer system manager. They may or may not have one but they use a computer system and quite often have surplus units that are left over from previous upgrades that they "didn't want to part with because they paid so much for them."

Check with local insurance firms with over 20 pr 30 employees. Same situation as the lawyers.

Check with the surplus department of the state, City, and County
governments to see if they have a preference for nonprofits to get surplus material (computers) on the same basis as other government agencies.

If you only need one or two machines, write up a specific request
listing the minimum system requirements (Pentium class, cdrom, 16 MB memory) and circulate the request to your Board of Directors and business contacts, (suppliers, service firms like lawyers and
bookeepers, and relatives of staff members that may work in larger firms.

If you need more than a few machines, write up a specific request
listing the minimum system requirements (Pentium class, cdrom, 16 MB memory) and what it is needed for (lab in a Senior Center for instance) and circulate the request in your local Civic Service organizations (Lions, Rotary, Toastmasters, Chamber of Commerce, etc.). This will usually turn out more than a few machines.

Finally, cultivate a friendship with a local computer hobbyist who can help diagnose and tune the computers you come up with. You should be able to find plenty at the local level.

If you are willing to consider buying used (refurbished) equipment, this list from the New York Times will give you some places to check prices:

• http://www.delloutlet.com
  
• http://www.gateway.com/remanPC
  
• http://www.ibm.com/products/us -- click on "Refurbished"
  
• http://www.compaqfactoryoutlet.com
  
• http://www.hpshopping.com -- click on "outlet store"
  
• http://store.apple.com -- click on "Special Deals"
  

There are also many listings of used computers and other "deals" on the auction sites such as http://www.ebay.com.

Peter Haefner posted to NONPROFIT on 2/19/00 to report:

There has a list just been starting on computer recycling.
npcr-subscribe@listbot.com or http://www.infomagic.com/~abyte/list.htm

The Hopi Indian Network runs a program that assists with computer donations in many communities.

Recycles.org wrote on July 3, 2001:
The Nonprofit Recycling and Reuse Network receives from businesses and individuals an average of 100 offers to donate used computer equipment each month. These offers arrive from communities across the United States. If your nonprofit is in need of equipment or if you need to liquidate some of your own inventory, explore our pages from here:

http://www.recycles.org/list/

There is an organization that does similar work in Canada:


reBOOT Canada
136 Geary Avenue, Unit 110
Toronto, Ontario M6H 4H1
http://www.reboot.on.ca/
tel: (416) 534 6017 fax: (416) 534 6083
e-mail: info@reboot.on.ca

Jayne Cravens wrote in the Cyber-Accountability email discussion on September 3, 1998:
The local Goodwill here in Austin, Texas takes all computer parts, however outdated or broken, and uses them to build low-cost, low-end machines. Give your local United Way a call and see what they say. Also try:

http://www.microweb.com/pepsite/Recycle/National.html
PEP Computer Recycling A directory of national computer recycling programs that facilitate donations of used equipment for schools and community groups.

http://www.learner.org/sami/ SAMI-Computer Recycle Projects A list of organizations that participate in local and national recycling by donating computers/supplies.

Barry Cranmer, President, Share the Technology - computer recycling project
(recycle@sharetechnology.org) added later that day:
Thanks to Jayne for the tip about the SAMI web site. I just added it to our database of resources for organizaions seeking computer donations and those trying to patch together old machines to give away.

We also maintain a database of requests posted by organizations seeking donations. http://www.web-savvy.com/reuse/index.html

I know there are some NYC orgs listed with their contact information.

Organizations doing this kind of work are invited to post a listing which they may update as they wish.

On 12/20/00, Chris Holinger (Chris@pcsforschools.org) wrote:
Dear Editor,

As of April 1st of this year, the Computers for Schools Program was moved to Chicago. It was at this time that Willie Cade, an affiliate of the program and good friend of John Detwiler, assumed presidency of the program.

We still have programs in 34 states and continue to lead the nation in refurbishment of donated computers for schools. In addition, the Computers for Schools, Canada (which has refurbished over 250,000 computers for their nation) recently signed on as a member of our association and I believe they
should be noted on your site as well. Their information is as follows:

Pierre Gendron, Director
300 Slater St., Rm. 1830
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0C8
Phone: (613) 993-2397
Fax: (613) 957-1210
Email: gendron.pierre@ic.gc.ca
www.schoolnet.ca/cfs-ope/

Our updated information is as follows:

Willie Cade, President
Computers for Schools Program
3642 N. Springfield Ave.
Chicago, IL 60618-4029
(800) 939-6000
(773) 583-7575
Fax: (773) 583-7585
willie@pcsforschools.org
www.pcsforschools.org

On our website you will find the resources to donate equipment, apply to be a refurbisher for our program, and apply for your school to receive computers through our program.

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Before going too far down the road of seeking donated equipment, it might be a good idea to review http://www.siia.net/divisions/education/donatecomp.asp where the Software and Information Industry Association helps recipients calculate the total cost of ownership of used computers.

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Reposted, with additions and small modifications, September 3, 1998, corrected reBOOT Canada 7/3/01, added Dale Tersey's revised information 3/5/01; revised sharetechnology entry and added Computers for Schools 4/11/01; added SIIA comment 6/27/01; added information about ReCycles.org 7/3/01; used computers 1/24/02; sharetechnology.org removed (no longer operating) 5/1/07 -- PB