Giving it away works, but not just like that
A four-year-old laptop is a perfectly good machine for a school, a charity or a language class. The idea of donating retired equipment therefore comes up in almost every organisation at some point, and it almost always founders on the same three points. This page says which ones and how to tick them off.
Three points to settle in advance
None of the three is complicated, and all three get skipped.
- The data has to be demonstrably goneA donated device is a device leaving your building. Under the GDPR the responsibility stays with you, including when giving it away was well meant. So: wiped to a recognised method, with a certificate per serial number, exactly as with disposal.
- The recipient has to be able to use itA device that no longer receives the new version of the operating system is not a gift but a problem you are passing on. At a school or charity without an administrator that is worse than it is at your place.
- Finance has to knowGiving equipment away touches depreciation and sometimes the tax treatment. That is not an objection, but it belongs arranged in advance rather than explained afterwards.
From written off to usable
The same steps as disposal, with one turning added.
Assess what is usable
What still gets years of updates and what needs a battery or an SSD. What does not pass goes to recycling and not on to a recipient anyway.
Wipe and rebuild
The drive is wiped to a recognised method, you get the certificate, and the device leaves with a clean installation rather than with remnants of your environment on it.
Hand over with a list
Which serial number went to which recipient. That is not formalism: it is the answer to the question of where device number thirty-nine ended up.
When donating is not the right answer
We earn no more on either route than on the other, so this can be said without detour.
- When there is residual value leftSelling equipment that is still worth money and donating the proceeds almost always gets the recipient more than the device itself would. That is a dull truth and it holds.
- When the device is out of supportGiving away a device without security updates moves a risk to somebody less able to carry it than you. That is not a gift.
- When nobody manages itTwenty laptops at a charity without IT people are twenty laptops in a cupboard a year later. Donating works where somebody hands them out and keeps track.
What goes with this
Donating is one of three exits at the end of the lifecycle.
Questions we get about this
The ones that come up most, answered briefly.
Are we allowed to just give equipment away?
Giving it away is allowed, but responsibility for the data does not travel with it. Under the GDPR it stays with you, including when it was well meant. So wipe to a recognised method with a certificate per serial number, just as with disposal.
Is donating better than selling?
Not automatically. If residual value is left, selling and donating the proceeds almost always gets the recipient more than the device itself. That is a dull truth, and we earn no more on either route than on the other.
Do you arrange who receives it?
We prepare the equipment and record per serial number where it went. Choosing the recipient is yours; that is a decision about your organisation and not about IT.
Give it away with the paperwork
Send a list of what is being written off. You get back what is usable for donation, what is better sold and what belongs in recycling.
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