Donating

If you would like to donate, you can bring equipment/supplies to our lab by appointment only.  Call us at 217.528.9506 to schedule an appointment time. Please leave a message if we are not in the office.

Wish List
  • Pentium 4 (1.2 GHz) or faster computers in working order*
  • 17" or 19" (diagonal measurement) monitors in working order
  • Cookies and other snacks to fuel our great volunteers
  • Kitchen supplies: paper plates, cups and plasticware, etc.
  • Monetary donations°

All donations are tax deductible subject to IRS rules. It is the donor's responsibility to determine fair market value of equipment.
* Computer Banc is not responsible for removing personal information from donated hard drives.  While our standard procedures provide for wiping the drive (see standard procedures below), we recommend that individual donors download and run a disk wiping program before bringing equipment into Computer Banc.
° $750 covers our lab and office space for a month, $150 covers staff costs for a week, $100 covers the cost to refurbish a computer, $50 feeds the volunteers at our bi-monthly work day.

Standard Data Confidentiality Policy
Computer Banc takes data confidentiality and security very seriously. The following procedures are designed to ensure data confidentiality and security.

General Procedures:

  1. Computer Banc recommends that all donors wipe their hard drives before donating their computer.  Computer Banc also suggests free wiping programs for donors to download and use.
  2. Each individual donor signs a statement indicating that they release Computer Banc from any liability regarding any personal information left on a PC.
  3. All Computer Banc volunteers and staff sign confidentiality statement.  The procedures for preparing computers for use by clients are designed so any personal information mistakenly left on a hard drive is not accessed.
  4. Donated computers are secured.  When Computer Banc staff is not present, the building is locked and alarmed. If computers are temporarily stored off-site, they are in a secured building.
  5. On the rare occasions that Computer Banc receives data diskettes, data CDs, or data DVDs along with computers or software, these are mechanically destroyed.
  6. Corporate donors are required to remove any property tags.  Any remaining property tags are removed as part of the intake process.
  7. Hard drives of computers coming from corporate donors who have professional IT staff and who tell Computer Banc their hard drives have been wiped are loaded with software and prepared for our clients without re-wiping the hard drove.
  8. Hard drives of all other computers are either wiped to Department of Defense specifications or are completely disassembled and recycled.
    • Computers meeting specifications for our clients have the hard drive removed and replaced with a wiped drive during intake.  The hard drives removed are then wiped to DOD specifications.  Drives that fail the wiping process are disassembled as described below.
    • Computers not meeting specifications for our clients are disassembled and all parts are recycled or reused.  All hard drives from computer disassembly are either wiped to DOD specifications or are completely disassembled and the metal recycled.
  9. Although it is highly improbable, an aluminum disc (or a portion of a disc) from a disassembled drive could be partially read using a time-consuming process and very expensive and sophisticated equipment.  The same can be said for wiped, crushed, shredded, drilled, or punched hard drives. The only way to absolutely guarantee the confidentiality of data is to melt the discs from the hard drive on site.  Computer Banc does not melt the discs on site.

Removing All Data From Your Hard Drive
Prior to donating your PC to Computer Banc, we ask that you remove your personal information from the drive. The easiest way to do this is to download a disk wiping program and remove all data from the drive.

Using a disk wiping program will ensure all of your data will be erased from the donated computer with minimal chance of the data being recovered. You will NOT be able to recover the information after using a wiping utility. We encourage you to use a free disk wiping utility such as Active@ KillDisk's Hard Drive Eraser. Other similar programs can be found at http://download.com or other download sites.