Free/Discounted Mobile Phones?

Maggie.Moo_2

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, feel free to move it.

I volunteer for a charity project and something that continually comes up is the need for volunteer phones. At the moment, we can only communicate (outside of face-to-face meetings) with clients via the line manager to protect our personal contact details. This can be quite a lengthy process when there are a few us trying to get a hold of our clients just to check if they are actually on their way (I have waited for a combined length of two hours for 'no-shows' as the line manager was unable to take calls and therefore couldn't tell us if people weren't coming).

I have thought about contacting a supplier to see if we can negotiate a donation of (or at least heavily discounted) mobile phones to be used by volunteers to contact clients. The problem is, I don't know where to start.

Does anyone have any ideas or know of any phone companies who have donated phones to charities/volunteers in the past? We're happy to accept secondhand phones but again, we don't know where to turn.

Thanks!

Savvy_Sue

Second hand phones: social media!

asajj

You may try to contact companies via Twitter / e-mail to see whether they do. You can also ask for donations from public (word of mouth).

Silk

You can buy brand new basic mobile phones from as little a £2.99 so wouldn't have thought that was the problem.
It's the cost of running them ie paying for top ups on payg or the cost of contracts that's going to be the issue

Maggie.Moo_2

I completely forgot we're undergoing a re-structure at the moment and I'm no longer certain about our volunteer numbers but I might try Twitter/Facebook to target companies once everything is certain again

Silk: Where are there handsets for £2.99? I haven't come across anything cheaper than £7 (on contract). Surprisingly, I don't think running costs will be too hard to sort out as we can already make put phone calls on our expenses forms (although we are not permitted as we are not allowed to use our own phones to contact people).

Silk

Maggie.Moo wrote: »

Silk: Where are there handsets for £2.99? .

Argos sell them

forgotmyname

ASDA often have basic phones for £10 or less.