THOMAS’S FOUNDATION – FUNDRAISING AT BATTERSEA

Donating Old Mobile Phones – Raising Money Through Recycling

HOW IT WORKS:

Thomas’s Foundation is introducing an initiative at Thomas’s Battersea to donate old, redundant mobile phones to raise money for charity. This will be an easy and environmentally friendly way to dispose of unwanted mobile phone handsets.

The phones will be collected in a metal box that will be located in the tunnel outside the Second Hand Shop. All donated phones will be removed at the end of each day during the collection period and stored in a safe. Mobile phones – handsets only – can be in any condition but with all personal data removed. At the end of the donation period they will be sent to company whose business is to recycle them. A log will be kept of all mobiles donated and sent to ShP.

The Foundation has researched companies who do this and has chosen to use ShP for Charity, a complete online mobile phone recycling service. To date ShP for Charity has raised over £2 million for charities of all sizes through mobile phone recycling.

RAISING MONEY:

Thomas’s Foundation will get 100% of the proceeds of every handset donated. ShP covers their costs and makes a margin on the phones when they sell them on – the break up value of the phone being greater than the nominal value of the handset. At the end of the collection period ShP will arrange for a courier to collect the phones. The service is free, environmentally friendly and there is a short lead time between collection of the handsets and Thomas’s Foundation receiving proceeds generated.

SECURITY:

Before donating any handsets all SIM cards and personal data must be removed from the phone. For non smart phones this is a fairly simple process – each manufacturer is different, but instructions can be found in the ‘settings’ instructions for the phone and on the internet. Apple devices can be erased by following these steps in the following order: Settings – General – Reset – Erase All Content & Settings. The SIM card should then be removed and service suspended.

As a precaution SHP undertakes to wipe all data off all devices and reset them to factory settings when they reach their warehouse. Standard mobile phones are reset with a simple factory reset code. For smart phones – Blackberry’s and iPhones – ShP uses a memory wiping software Blancco which is an MOD approved wiping system originally developed for use on PC hard drives. ShP has worked with them to develop a Smartphone wipe.

ShP is ISO 27001 (security) accredited for data storage and destruction procedures and CheckMend registered – a database held by Police and Insurance companies to stop phone theft.