Many IT asset managers view donation as an attractive option for the disposition of their retired IT equipment. What better way to cap off a refresh cycle than by passing the now-unused, but perfectly usable,  laptops, PCs, and other equipment on to a school or charitable organization that could really use it?

Donating used IT equipment is a great way for your company to give back to the community and generate some positive PR (and unload some space-consuming equipment in the process).  However,  if you are planning to go this route with your company’s equipment, be sure to plan it through first. The last thing you want to do is saddle your local charity with additional costs or inconvenience just for accepting your donation.

Here are three ways you can make it easier for your selected non-profit of choice to accept your laptop or PC donations:

1. Include the Disposition of Their Old Equipment

Just like your company has old equipment to dispose of after a refresh cycle, your charity will have to do something with the equipment your equipment is replacing. Non-profit organizations are subject to all the same data security and environmental compliance regulations that your company is. The difference is that they may not have the budget or the staff for a safe, secure process that follows those rules. They’ll either end up disposing of their old equipment improperly or keeping it and allowing it to take up valuable space, or having to use funds for disposition that they would rather use for their mission

To make it easier for your charity, offer to handle the disposition of their old laptops and PCs for them. Non-profits are almost always short of staff resources; any burden you can relieve for them will be much appreciated. If your company can’t provide IT asset disposition services to your charity, prepay for the services of a certified IT asset disposition vendor that can provide safe and secure data destruction, recycling, and remarketing.

2. Make Sure Your Charity Actually Needs Your Equipment

It’s not uncommon for non-profit organizations like schools to receive used IT equipment that they actually can’t use because it doesn’t work well with their existing systems, for example, or doesn’t run the software they need, or just isn’t a good fit for the needs of the organization. In these cases the companies donating the equipment are well-meaning enough—they just haven’t done enough background work to ensure their charity of choice matches well with the type of equipment they’re trying to give away.

3. Work with an ITAD Vendor

Donating IT equipment like laptops and PCs is not as easy as it might seem. A third-party IT asset disposition vendor can make all the difference. An ITAD vendor can help you identify the right charity for your equipment, and ensure that proper disposition practices like data destruction and recycling are followed by both sides. An ITAD vendor can also turn your used assets into cash by selling them on the resale market. Then you can donate the cash instead of the computers. Charities often prefer this option because it gives them the freedom to choose the technology they want, rather than being forced into using the systems that are donated to them.  Another option some ITAD vendors can offer is to “swap” one type of asset for another.  For example, if your preferred charity really needs PCs, and what you have is laptops, the vendor can make it possible for you to make a donation of PCs (of the make and model the charity really needs) based on the value of your laptops.

To learn more about minimizing the costs of sanitizing (wiping) your IT assets for donation or disposition, check out this free whitepaper: The IT Asset Manager’s Guide to Disposition.