Advanced Kiosks is a computer kiosk hardware and software company, but first and foremost we are a team who cares about our community. The way we show our support to local non-profit organizations is by donating our available time and resources (and some of us even volunteer our weekends) in any way we can. A quality that everyone here at Advanced Kiosks shares is that at some point or another, we’ve contributed to a non-profit of our choice even before joining the team. Some of us donate a percentage of our income, some of us do furniture refurbishments for non-profit shops, and some lead youth groups to get kids involved in the future.
We feel that being charitable is integral to the success of a business and to nonprofit organizations nationwide. We’re hoping to use ourselves as an example to inspire businesses to give time, resources, or both to their community.
“Why should you donate to a non-profit organization?”
Here are a few reasons why…
Support a cause you care about!
The great thing about donating to a non-profit is that you can choose what cause you donate to. What are you passionate about? Education? Technology? Music and arts? Even on a neurological scale donating to causes you care about increases dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin in the brain, which improves your mood and mental wellbeing. Bring up your mood and company morale by doing good deeds.
Spring cleaning!
On a bit more tangible scale, do you have anything in the office you’re ready to part with? Your ‘trash’ may be a nonprofit’s treasure! If you have any surplus office supplies, keyboards, computer mouses (mice?), desktops, etc. don’t throw it in the trash. Donate it to a local nonprofit that could use the extra resources. You never know what someone else is in need of that you may have just sitting around in storage.
Tax Deductible!
Did you know you can claim a charitable deduction on your tax return? Donate to a certified nonprofit (for example, a 501c3) to get a tax break. If you make a non-monetary donation, you can get a receipt from the non-profit with an list of the donations to file.
Don’t think you can make a difference?
People often assume that the little amount they can give is not enough to make an impact. If one person donates $100, or ten people donate $10 each, it still leaves the same outcome of $100. Any amount counts! Take a company retreat day and help the local food pantry, start a fundraiser, donate surplus resources like that extra laptop collecting dust! You never know what you can do to help until you try.
Alexis Writing at Chron Small Business makes a good point. “You might not be a doctor, but you can help to search for a cure for childhood leukemia by donating to a nonprofit organization. You might not be able to take time off work to save animals soaked in oil from the Gulf oil spill, but you can help support someone else who is able to do so” (The Advantages of Giving to a Nonprofit Organization).
Navigating Recovery
We recently donated two computers and our computer kiosk software to Navigating Recovery in Laconia, NH for employment acquisition services! Dr. Daisy Pierce, Executive Director of Navigating Recovery, updated us on the status of this donation. “The computers have worked out wonderfully for us. We use them for clients who want to do job searches, or find an apartment (on Craigslist). Most of the links to external job applications work, but occasionally we have to pull up an application on one of our personal computers. This has been a wonderful and very helpful program to be able to offer to our clients”.
People can come in and use these computers to job search while the office is open and receive assistance from the team at Navigating Recovery. At a public building with computers, they may not get the same help throughout the process. “Although our local library does have computers for people to use, it is also known as an unsafe space for people suffering from substance use disorder – too many temptations to buy / use. Having a safe, peaceful space with support is far better.” Dr. Pierce and her team saw this as a hurdle when it came to finding resources for people in recovery and began to search for a solution.
At Advanced Kiosks, we have computer kiosk software designed for our kiosks that had some capabilities useful to Navigating Recovery. We wanted to donate computers and they were looking to find computers that could only be used for job searching. Advanced Kiosks has Zamok, a kiosk management software that has a white listing feature. White listing is a process where an administrator chooses specific websites that can only be used on the device. In this case, Navigating Recovery used Zamok to white list websites like Indeed, Monster, or Craigslist.
Without donations, Dr. Pierce stresses the impact this can have on non-profits. “Our budget is limited, as are many non-profits, so having these computers donated allowed us to use the money towards other resources that cannot be donated (i.e. wages).” To us, the computers were just extra resources for the office. For Navigating Recovery, the computers are now a safe and valuable resource for housing and job searches within the community.
www.navigatingrecovery.org : Dr. Pierce and the team at Navigating Recovery support NH’s lakes region, providing a full schedule of meetings and programs to the community including yoga, community gardening, fundraisers, and recovery coach training for people who want to help others on their personal path to recovery.