How To Run A Cell Phone Collection Drive Using Twitter

Twitter has been the focus of much attention lately as celebrities, politicians, and marketers have flocked to the site to spread their messages to the world 140 characters at a time. If you're running a charity or non-profit, can you benefit from having a Twitter account? More importantly, can you use Twitter to gather support for your organization, raise funds, or run a community initiative like a cell phone recycling drive?


What is Twitter?

Twitter is a free micro-blogging platform in which users can broadcast their messages to their followers on the site. Each tweet (Twitter message) must be 140 characters or less in length and may contain any information - a remark, a quote, an answer to someone's question, a news item, or a link to a web page. So, is it a numbers' game - the more people following you on Twitter the larger the potential audience for your message? While a sizable following on Twitter is important, you will soon discover that the quality of your followers matters more than the number of people or accounts following you.



Why use Twitter?

Twitter is being used by over 6 million people on the planet today. Granting your charity or non-profit doesn't really need to reach that many people, delivering your message to just a small fraction of that vast audience has the potential to expand support for your organization exponentially. Twitter is continuing to grow at a rapid pace - it is expected to grow to 18 million users by 2010. It has already established its reach, relevance, and influence over a large global audience. If your charity or non-profit is not yet using Twitter, why not?

Watch: Twitter Tutorial - Getting Started



Building your followers

The bottomline question for anyone wanting to run a successful promotion on Twitter is influence. How many people among your followers will "retweet" or resend your message to their own followers?

This is where the quality of your followers becomes strategically important. Someone with 50,000 followers may be a lot less influential than someone like Dr. Mani (@drmani),a surgeon in India working to provide much-needed heart surgeries to underpriveleged children. Dr. Mani has only 4,000 or so followers, but these are people who believe in what he's doing and will retweet Dr. Mani's messages to their own followers. As a result, his messages reach hundreds of thousands if not millions of Twitter users.

So, how do you create an army of followers/evangelists/partners on Twitter?

One word: relationships.

Social media sites may be a very fast-paced medium of communication, but the people using these sites still value personal relationships and authenticity. Send out tweets that are relevant to your organization or industry, provide value, answer questions, respond to direct messages, thank people for retweeting your posts.

Be interested in others, engage in conversations, provide useful links. There are so many ways, but the main thing is to build relationships with people who know you, trust you, and will help you out on any initiative - like a cell phone recycling drive - you might want to promote on Twitter. Reach out to influentials or people with huge following, they can greatly help you if they're sold to what you're doing and what you're trying to achieve.


Running your cell phone recycling drive

Running a cell phone recycling drive using Twitter is relatively easy and very effective if you've already established credibility and trust among your followers. If you've already been providing valuable links and information to your followers, you can readily insert in-between messages promoting your drive, without antagonizing anyone.

Create a landing page in your site in which you describe what the drive is all about, why you're doing it, and who will benefit from it. You may also want to include some forms to capture subscriber or supporter information or addresses of people requesting mailing labels (if you're providing those). Don't forget YOUR call to action and to mention who can help you with the initiative - is it for everyone, just people from the US, or just people from a certain city or state?

When you've created this page, you may now start sending out messages on your Twitter account to direct people to your cell phone recycling drive page. Don't send promotional messages every hour, just because you're excited about your drive. The easiest way to lose followers on Twitter is to spam them incessantly with self-promotional messages. One or two messages a day is enough. If you have quality followers, you can be sure your message will be viewable to a good number of people, which hopefully will translate to more support for your cell phone drive.



As you've probably noticed, running a cell phone recycling drive for your charity or non-profit is just one example of the myriad number of ways you can use Twitter. The popularity of social media sites virtually exploded overnight, and everyone in business is just starting to react. It will serve well those people who benefit from your non-profit or charity work, if your organization can establish a presence and grow on Twitter.

Follow Michael Arms on Twitter.

Michael Arms contributes cell phone recycling and other articles to the Pacebutler Recycling blog. You can sell, donate, or recycle cell phones through Pacebutler Corporation, an Oklahoma-based cell phone recycling and refurbishing company.

Author: Michael Arms
Source: How To Run A Cell Phone Collection Drive Using Twitter (Amazines)

How To Run A Cell Phone Collection Drive For Your Charity or Non-Profit

Every charity organization or non-profit seems to be doing cell phone or computer collection drives these days. Is it still worthwhile for your organization to collect old cell phones to help raise funds?

The answer, of course, is an unqualified yes.

One hundred million cell phones are discarded every year in the US - just about 30% of these used phones are recycled or sent back to the manufacturers. The remaining 70% or so are reported as lost, given to friends, thrown in trash bins, or hidden in drawers. There's a huge supply of old cell phones out there and mobile phone trading companies, like Pacebutler Corporation of Edmond, Oklahoma, are still paying top dollar (as much as $75 per piece) for those old phones.

Door to door collection

Along with placing drop boxes and pasting notices in strategic public places, door-to-door collection is the traditional way of running cell phone collection drives. The advantage of this method is that you get to build relationships with the members of your community through person-to-person interaction and help spread your message (if that is a goal) while doing your used phone collection activities. Your results (total number of used cellular phones collected) using this method will be limited by the size of your community or the available personnel doing the legwork.


Working with students and social groups

Working with student groups or social clubs in your city or community will yield better results than the door-to-door method described above. Here, you are leveraging the reach and network of a larger group to help you collect used cell phones for your fund raising - more than what you can normally achieve going about it on your own.

Arrange to speak before the student body or the PTA in your local school and do a compelling presentation about your activities and advocacy and how these are helping people better their lives. Don't forget the call to action at the end of your presentation, telling them about your planned cellular phone collection drive and how their association or student body can help you.

The underlying message is that they're not merely assisting you collect old mobile phones but helping you feed the children, save rainforests, protect coral reefs, or whatever it is that your charity or non-profit does.

Watch: Raise money for your organization by collecting cell phones!




Working with a cell phone recycling or trading company

Since they will be paying for the shipping costs, you should contact the cell phone recycler or trader beforehand, preferably before you start your collection program. This the stage where you can negotiate special pricing with them, which isn't hard to obtain if you tell them of the large number of phones you expect to collect and sell to them on a regular basis. You can also ask for help with the flyers, collection boxes, and posters - they will only be too happy providing you these support materials since you're doing business with them.


Sending your collected phones to the trading or recycling company

Mobile phone trading companies, like Pacebutler Corporation, have online price lists for you to check before sending the phones in bulk to them. If you have the time, I also suggest you find out the actual price of the cell phones that you have and come up with a rough estimate of the total worth of your collected used phones, to temper expectations and prevent any conflict in the future. While some models may fetch a buying price as high as $75 per piece, many old ones out there are priced to just around a dollar or lower per piece. Traders will not pay for non-working phones or those that are too old to be of any use.


Done right and done regularly, cell phone collection drives can be an important source of funds for you. Millions of cell phone are thrown away and wasted every year, collecting just a fraction of these can make a significant difference in the finances of any non-profit or charity.


Michael Arms writes about recycling facts and other topics for the Pacebutler Recycling Blog. You can sell, recycle, or donate cell phones to charity and non-profit through Pacebutler Corporation, a US-based cellular phone trading and recycling company.

Author: Michael Arms
Source: How To Run A Cell Phone Collection Drive For Your Charity or Non-Profit (Article Dashboard)

Photo Credit: The Siren

How to Donate Cell Phones To Charity or Non-Profit

Every year, 100 million cell phones are replaced or discarded in the United States. Less than 20% of this total are recycled or sent back to the manufacturers - the rest are lost, thrown to trash bins, or kept in drawers.


Why donate or recycle cell phones?

Cell phones are an important source for recyclable materials like plastic, glass, silver, gold, and coltan. Throwing away these old phones is basically equivalent to throwing away precious resources that could otherwise be reused to manufacture new cellular phones and other products.

A grimmer aspect to cell phone recycling is the toxicity of some of the metals found in cell phones. Once deposited in landfills, dangerous chemicals leaching out of old phone casing and batteries like brominated fire retardants (BFR), cadmium, lead, and mercury have the potential to contaminate nearby underground water sources. These chemicals have been known to cause cancer, brain damage, and nervous system disorders, among a host of other illnesses.


Donate cell phones to charity or non-profit

Donating your used mobile phone to your favorite charity is a most viable option worth considering. There are many charities, non-profit, or informal community- and school-based groups that are always collecting used phones across the country. Most of these organizations are involved in food relief, rehabilitation, international education, health, environment, and domestic violence prevention programs.

By donating your used cellular phones to any one of these entities, you're basically turning something - that would have been useless otherwise - into a tool to help these groups do their beneficial work. That old cell phone you're planning to chuck into the trash bin or stash away in your drawer might just help someone out there today.


Tax-deductible donations

If your dropping off or donating your old mobile directly to the non-profit, you may want to ask for a receipt from them, which can then be attached to your April filing to get the corresponding tax deduction. Not all groups or non-profit are qualified to receive tax-offsetting donations, you just have to ask. Otherwise, it's as simple as mailing or dropping that old phone in a collection box in your community.


Watch: The Secret Life Of Cell Phones



Where to donate cell phones?

It's up to you - most of the mainstream non-profit organizations today have some kind of a cell phone collection program to help generate funds. If you're not sure where to make a used or old phone donation, here are some places you can go to:

Local groups. Look around, check posters or online community updates. Many of these groups are based in schools, churches, and social clubs. Are there kids from the nearby school going around collecting old phones door-to-door for their chosen cause or charity? Is your church conducting a fund drive to replace the old sound system? There are always many opportunities to donate and help locally.

Environmental non-profit. These are groups that are involved in environmental advocacy and conservation. Usually, the group will set aside a certain percentage of the proceeds from your cell phone donations to fund a specific environmental project - like gorilla conservation, coral reef protection, or rainforest-related projects.

Old cell phones for victims of domestic violence. Violence against women and children is the ugly underbelly of modern homes. Oftentimes, women and children who are victims of abuse in their own homes flee to protect themselves and seek help, with nothing but the clothes on their back. Organizations providing refuge to these victims are constantly in need of old cellular phones these people can use to contact other family members or seek legal help.

Cell phone for soldiers. Non-profits who are working with members of the military and their families are also in need of used cellular phone donations. Proceeds from the used phones they're able to collect and sell to recyclers are used to purchase mobile phone cards to help soldiers stationed overseas communicate with their loved ones back in the US.

Health advocacy. Non-profits working for health advocacy often provide support to the victims of catastrophic diseases like cancer, leukemia, etc. and their families. They also collect second-hand mobile phones to help fund their conntributions to research facilities that are working to find the cures for these diseases.

Children's organizations. These are non-profits involved in feeding, providing shelter and basic necessities, and educating children in needy communities here in the US and abroad. Organizations like "Feed The Children" are collecting used phones through their online partner, Pacebutler Corporation, to help fund their work on behalf of these disadvantaged children.

As you can see, there are a lot of groups out there that you can work with, to make a difference in the lives of others. whatever organization you choose to help today, you can be sure that your old cellular phones are put to good use. It's easy and you know that it's the right thing to do.

Donate cell phones to a charity or non-profit, today.


Michael Arms contributes cell phone recycling and other articles to the Pacebutler Recycling Blog. You can sell, recycle, or donate cell phones through Pacebutler Corporation, a US-based cell phone trading company.

Author: Michael Arms
Source: How To Donate Cell Phones To Charity or Non-Profit (GoArticles)

Photo Credit: Image used originally courtesy of joelogon on Flickr and used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Top 7 Benefits of Recycling

Recycling is a process - a series of activities, if you will, that includes: the collection and sorting of waste materials, the processing of these materials to produce brand new products, and the purchase and use of these new products by consumers.

Recycling is more optimized and efficient if we practice the three R's of waste management: reduce, reuse, recycle.

Reducing waste that otherwise get's carted off to the recycling centers or landfills is achieved through an intentional decrease in our purchases and consumption,composting of organic waste, and flat refusal to use disposable items like polystyrene and plastic bags. Reusing materials serve to lengthen a particular item's usage. Examples of this are: repurposing glass bottles into artistic lamp shades, giving your old cell phones to family or friends for reuse, and upcycling street trash bins into community swimming tubs.


But, why recycle? Why go through all the trouble of recycling your garbage? How does recycling benefit us and the environment?

Let's review the benefits of recycling:

Recycling Helps Protect The Environment

Recycling sharply reduces the amount of waste that gets deposited in our landfills or burned in incinerator plants. Engineered landfills in most cities are designed to contain toxic chemicals leaking from decaying solid waste from reaching our water systems. But, for how long? Already, we're getting reports of dangerous chemicals contaminating water supplies in some cities. Burning solid waste for electricity may be efficient, but we pay the price in terms of increased carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.


Recycling Helps Conserve Limited Resources

To put this benefit in proper perspective, let's consider this statement from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection: "By recycling over 1 million tons of steel in 2004, Pennsylvanians saved 1.3 million tons of iron ore, 718,000 tons of coal, and 62,000 tons of limestone. Through recycling newsprint, office paper and mixed paper, we saved nearly over 8.2 million trees."

Resources like oil and precious metals (gold, silver, bauxite, copper, etc.) are all finite resources that will be exhausted, sooner or later. Cell phone and computer manufacturers, like Dell and Apple, recognize the need for a steady supply of raw materials - most are active in buy-back programs to recycle materials from used products.


Recycling Promotes Energy Efficiency

Recycling is far more efficient, in terms of energy consumption, than producing something out of fresh raw material. Done on a nationwide scale, this could lead to significant reduction in our energy costs. The energy required to extract , process, and transport metal from a mine to a refinery is obviously much greater than what's required to recycle metal from used products - it costs more energy to manufacture a brand new aluminum can from fresh material than to make 20 cans out of recycled materials!


Recycling Helps Build A Strong Economy

Every cost-reduction, energy efficiency, materials conservation, and job generation benefit of recycling adds up to help build a strong economy for our country. Recycling, done on a country-wide scale, has a huge positive impact on the economy. There was dip in the price of recyclables last year when the financial crisis started, but it is testimony to the resiliency of this industry that prices are now back to pre-crisis levels - a recovery that's well ahead than most other industries. Jobs are being generated and city and town governments are enjoying huge savings in electricity, garbage collection, and landfilling costs.


Recycling Creates Jobs

Recycling generates more jobs than landfilling or incinerating waste. That's a benefit we can't lose sight of, in this time of recession and high unemployment rate. Let's consider the disposal of 10,000 tons of solid waste: burning it for electricity will create 1 job; collecting and dumping this on a landfill will create 6 jobs; processing the waste for recyling will generate 36 jobs!


Recycling Builds Community

People band together and build communities around common causes, issues, and advocacies. Recycling is no different. In many neighborhoods and cities across the country, we see concerned citizens working together in recycling initiatives, environment lobby groups, and free recycling groups. If you're new to recycling or environmental advocacy, go find a local group to work with. Staying the course is more fun and rewarding when you have other enthusiasts cheering you on.


Recycling Can Be Financially Rewarding

If you just want to make money to get by in these hard times or start a home business, recycling is a profitable option. It's relatively easy and inexpensive to start a home-based recycling business. You just need to plan on what material (cell phone, paper, or metals, etc.) you intend to collect, plan storage, contact the recycling plant for pricing, and you're set to start collecting recyclables and reselling these to the recycling facility at a decent profit. The large recycling giants in the US all started as home businesses years ago - you can do it, too - those guys just recognized the huge potential of this business well ahead of the crowd.


The benefits of recycling to each of us, to society, and to the environment are our compelling reasons why we recycle. For many of us, recycling has become second nature - a way of life. It's a small but extremely vital component of environmental protection - without recycling, all our efforts to protect the planet will be less effective, even futile. Let's all continue recycling.

Watch: The Benefits of Recycling



Michael Arms contributes articles on recycling and other topics to the Pacebutler Recycling and Environment blog. Pacebutler is a cell phone recycling and trading company in the United States. You can sell, donate, or recycle cell phones through Pacebutler.

Author: Michael Arms
Source: Top 7 Benefits of Recycling (Ezine Articles)
Photo Credit: Tomasz G. Sienicki. Image used under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.