HARDWARE GRANTS FOR NON-PROFITS

Our goals

FREE GEEK deals with a lot of computer hardware on a day-to-day basis. While our first priority is building and supporting the systems that we give to our volunteers through the Adoption program, we do end up with extra systems and other hardware that we are glad to grant to other non-profits and social change organizations.

Who is eligible

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.

What is available

FREE GEEK does not have any spare money - these grants are for hardware only, primarily systems (which come installed with Debian Linux). There are three categories of computers we may grant through this program:

• FreekBox: these computers are relatively slow by today's standards, but work for typical word processing, web browsing, and email. This is the same computer an individual would get through our adoption program, and the specifications can be found here.
• GrantBox: A little nicer than a FreekBox, but still by no means cutting edge (see the detailed specification. We generally have fewer of these available, so only give them to high-need situations. Also, please specify if an external modem is required.
• DisklessBox: These computers are not useful by themselves, but when networked together with a server, are ideal for a small computer lab. (For more information on diskless terminals, check out http://lessdisks.net or http://ltsp.org) They usually contain a slower processor, less RAM, and a bootable network card. That's it - no harddrive or operating system. Only ask for these if you really know what you will be getting.

All systems come with monitor, mouse, keyboard and power cables.

Equipment we have in excess and probably will be able to give to qualifying organizations without hassle:

• monitors
• 64MB or 128MB sticks of SDRAM
• keyboards
• mice
• cases
• floppy, CDROM or zip drives
• small (~4GB) hard drives
• ethernet, sound or video cards
• short to medium length networking cable

Extremely unlikely equipment (we just don't have it) includes:

• Machines with 2.2 GHz or faster processors
• SCSI RAID arrays
• Over ten computers per request
• Over two laptops per request

We may tend to be a little short on RAM or other parts, especially for the newer systems. Remember -- we are only able to grant what people have given us (equipment they were getting rid of anyways).

We're probably only able to give 1-6 GrantBoxes, 5-15 DisklessBoxes, or 1-2 laptops in a single grant request, so please make your grant request with that in mind.

Please note: We may only be able to partially fill a grant. For instance, if a computer is requested, we may have a computer available, but not enough memory for it, so we may be able to give you a computer, but require you to obtain memory for it.

Organizations which require hardware should answer the following questions and then hit the "Submit form" button. Please do not email requests or send hard copies.

The granting group meets the first Wednesday of every month to decide which grants we will be able to fill. Please submit fill out and submit the above application by the last day of a month to have your application considered at the following Wednesday's meeting. We can't offer any guarantees, as our resources are limited, but we do want to share the wealth. Please note that this process is under development, and may be slow, but we'll do our best to help all we can.

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