Townsville Linux Users Group

I have 2 Apple PC's not sure on the model but need to get rid of them. Email me if you are interested.

TLUG members have asked how CBQ decides on who gets our refurbished/donated computers?

In the past, we have only supplied computers to community organisations for them or their clients. They come to us with a request that they have already vetted and verified and we take their word for it. These are all not for profit people like Career Employment Australia, Mission Australia, community care centres and so on. In addition, we have also donated direct to youth clubs (PCYC) and some poor/not well off community operated retirement homes. Demand normally does not outstrip supply, until now. However, we are getting a higher profile and have to deal with this.

We do not want to be in the business of deciding who is more deserving of our help. This flies in the face of good practice, as well as potentially holding ourselves up for criticism by our supporters and contributors. We also seeking !
government funding, so our processes must be transparent, and this would be too hard to achieve if we relied on our own processes to determine eligibility. Our golden rule is that we only deal through an organisation that has those skills.

This process of relying on professional social service providers to make recommendations can itself be criticised. Why do we accept one organisation's requests and not another? Are we too close to some organisations? Why do we supply computers to one not-for-profit group and not another? So you see there is a minefield to be negotiated, particularly when a major donor starts to ask questions.

Our solution is to be a project-driven in the future. This means that we supply community organisations that seem deserving and where application of technology will give a better outcome than to other equally deserving clients. Yes it is subjective, but we try to be open minded about it. In other words, we run our process in much the same way as !
government and non-government grant applications are considered. Step 1, decide on a set of criteria (which may change from project to project - the important thing is that we make the criteria known). Step 2, call for applications. We think six months ahead is a good time frame, which means we have a six month project in operation and a six month project in the pipeline at any one time. Step 3 - decide on a project to support. The important thing is to transparently apply the criteria to competing applications. Step 4 - run the project and supply the technology.

This is a fairly uncomplicated process executed by two or three people. One person would be me or a local rep responsible to donors for appropriate outcomes, one would be the technical team leader responsible for delivery of the technology, and one would be experienced in dealing with clients and their organisations.

CBQ are in the middle of this process at the moment for our next project. This could amount to t!
he provision of 350 computers state wide over the next 12 months.