What happens with recycled materials?

As you have read in our past post on this blog, I have been spending a lot of emphasis on recycled materials as an opportunity for donations for charities. The amount paid for all types of recyclables has dropped drastically in the past 4 months. This is not all bad! While prices were high, thousands of little start-up recycling businesses were popping up just to make a quick buck on the opportunity. Just like any financial trend, it is those who have a long-term vision and are willing to plan for the long haul that will succeed. Now that the price of recyclables has dropped many of these overnight businesses have closed their doors so the opportunity for charities is to position themselves to receive recyclable when the markets rebound.

Here is a fascinating utube video that will show you the recycle process.



How does a charity position itself?

#1 Regularly mention in your newsletters to your donor base about your ability to receive noncash donations such as cars (running or not), jewelry, collectibles, business inventory and recyclables. It will take several months of continuing to remind your donor base of these types of opportunities until you will see noncash donations being offered.
#2 Consider using media outlets such as billboard space, radio spots or newsprint. If you are a public charity, many times media outlets and billboard companies will offer public service advertising for free for charities when space is available. One thing to remember, you get what you pay for! If you want good ad space or good radio spots or good billboards, you will need to pay for it.
#3 Talk about noncash donation whenever you are speaking with your donors. This especially holds true when talking with board members, major donors, core donors and anyone interested in supporting your charity. The idea of noncash donations is very viral and as you tell as many people whom you have influence with, they will tell the people they know and before you know it, you will have a regular stream of noncash donations to supplement your cash donor base.

One of the neat things about noncash donations whether they are recyclables, unused items or overstock, the donation is usually a win win for the donor and the recipient charity. Always remember that www.idonate.com is always there to help liquidate noncash donations. They are also there to advise in what donations you should or should not receive. Please go to their web site www.idonate.com to learn more or you can give them a call at 913-538-7850. You can subscribe to a noncash donations web site giving link for $45 per month that will allow your donors to offer noncash donations and they will be able to assess and liquidate the donations while allowing your charity to monitor the progress and give input where needed.

Medical Center Changes Computers - An Opportunity for Generosity

We have recently worked with an IT contracting company that had donated multiple pieces of surplus networking equipment that we were able to contract with a consignment company to sell them. When it was all said and done, there was a nice donation to benefit an inner-city ministry in Kansas City.
After establishing this relationship with this IT company, we recently received a call from them offering a donation from one of their clients, a local hospital. The local medical center was changing out 140 of their computer units and was offering them as a donation minus the hard drives (most companies require that hard drives are destroyed before they're donated to protect hospital data.) Even without a hard drive, newer computers still have resale value and can be sold to be rebuilt.
We often see these wonderful phenomena, what we call viral marketing. By building good relationships with donors and liquidators, word gets around about the joy of generosity!

Merry Christmas, December 2008 Update

Greetings, Friends:
Another Christmas season has come and even though we face greater challenges as a nation than we have seen for many years, Jesus is just as loving and powerful as ever. What a wonderful opportunity we have to grow in our faith and see God’s provision. Just as Abraham was walking to the top of the mountain and told Isaac that God would supply a sacrifice, we too can take courage. As we walk in obedience, we will see God’s provision in the Mountain of the Lord. Genesis 22:14.
“Jane” the Recording Artist
Janey and Benjamin are doing well. To the left you see the cover of her CD. We had an old cassette tape she made back in 1992. I thought it would be nice to have it duplicated on CD. Janey sings several well-known hymns and songs of faith that are very easy to sing along with. If you would like a copy, we would gladly send it to you, just write us a note.
Benjamin is doing excellent in Home School and is learning to be a great chess player. I was playing him the other night and he sneaked around and captured my King and I wasn’t going easy on him to let him win either.
I asked Jesus to live in my heart!
Last week as we were driving home from church Benjamin told us that in children’s church that he prayed a very simple pray and he was very serious about the prayer. He said that he asked Jesus to come and live in his heart. We obviously were very blessed. God’s wonderful love has drawn Benjamin to have a relationship with Him for eternity.

Electronic Waste, Electronic Recycling: a Donation Option

Donation of electronics is becoming more of an option for companies and individuals because of recycling. Electronic items such as computers, monitors, TVs, cell phones, servers, computer cabling, server decks, printers, copiers, etc., are becoming more economical to recycle. TVs are becoming more of an environmental hazard especially after the conversion from analog to digital goes into effect in February of 2009; the amount of e-waste will surely grow significantly. Electronic scrap is being collected in larger and larger volumes and is the fastest growing segment of the recycling stream.
Some of the responsible factors are from the cost of raw materials continuing to rise making it environmentally viable for recycling to extract the metals in printed circuit boards. Also, there is a need to increase security to ensure safe data destruction when companies replace computer units. As we look to the future, more and more states are passing legislation mandating reductions in the amount of hazardous waste in the waste stream. New technologies are making it much more cost effective to recycle e-waste profitably, which in essence creates an entire new industry.
Electronic scrap can be difficult to process and to sort. Some of the methods currently being used are state of the art with optical separators, electro-static separators, sink-float, hydro-cyclones, density separators, magnets and eddy current separators and air tables.
If you or your company has a surplus of electronic units, consider the opportunity to donate them to benefit a nonprofit. Donated electronics can be properly processed without compromising security or the environment. You can learn more about donating electronics to our ministry foundation equipment by going to the top right of this blog and click "Donate a NonCash Donation" and the instructions will follow.