The Cisco Donations Program is currently available to Canadian Charities registered with the Canadian Revenue Agency.
Donated product will be distributed under this program to qualified organizations only, not to individuals.
The Cisco donation program is an on-line application process, and eligibility requirements sometimes change to match Cisco’s current giving guidelines. To collect the most current NGO information, interested organizations are required to complete a new application for each donation request.
Eligible organizations may request one donation of Cisco products per fiscal year (1 July – 30 June) with administrative fees totalling up to $4,800 USD.
Affiliates of a national organization (such as the YMCA and the American Red Cross) that has more than 20 locations (even if those affiliates are considered separate entities and are not funded by the national organization) are not eligible for Cisco donations.
After the TechSoup Canada request process is complete, the TechSoup Canada Cisco account management team might request additional information to verify that the organization matches the Cisco philanthropy guidelines. In particular, an organization must be able to show that their focus is serving economically disadvantaged people.
Cisco requests may not include non-Cisco item requests. Any non-Cisco items must be requested separately so they are not subject to the Cisco processing delay.
Eligibility
To be eligible for a Cisco donation, an organization must have an annual budget of no more than $20 million USD (your organization's most recent total expense as reported on your tax form), have a unique tax ID, and fall within one of the Cisco-approved nonprofit categories listed below.
Direct-service charity organizations that primarily serve economically disadvantaged people are eligible to receive Cisco donations. Please make sure that your organization's primary mission and services correspond to one of the following organizational types:
- Organizations that supply money, goods, or services to the poor
- Job training, counseling, or assistance organizations
- Organizations that provide rehabilitation to convicts, ex-convicts, alcoholics, drug abusers, or compulsive gamblers
- Educational services and remedial reading and encouragement
- Low-income housing assistance organizations
- Certain community service organizations that mainly serve the poor
- Organizations that provide care and housing of children, work to prevent cruelty to children, and combat juvenile delinquency
- Organizations that provide youth development programs, except those that focus on business or government
- Organizations that provide care and housing for the aged
- Aid to persons with disabilities
- Community health planning
- Patient and family support
- Mental health care organizations
- Environmental organizations that focus on conservation or preventing pollution
The following types of organizations are not eligible to receive Cisco donations through this program:
- Faith-based organizations. However, organizations whose primary mission is nonreligious might be able to register with an organization type that is eligible for Cisco donations.
- Legislative and political advocacy groups
- Youth services organizations, except those that provide basic human needs
- Inner city or community organizations, except for community service organizations
- Radio, television, media, publishing programs, or training
- Foundations, lending, grant-making organizations, or organizations that provide funding or loans
- Schools & scholarships: Public schools or school systems, Private schools, Charter schools, School foundations, Booster clubs or other fundraising organizations affiliated with particular school, Colleges, universities, Scholarships/stipend programs of any kind
- Charities that offer Cisco Networking Academy training programs even if they were previously accepted for Cisco grants and those who instruct Networking Academy curriculum as a single or separate component of their overall mission and/or services
- Referral services
- Animal care services and facilities
- Scientific research activities
- Sports Activities and services
- Day care centers
- Legal aid, credit counselling, and civil rights activities
- Museums
- Cultural and historical organizations
- Libraries
- Camps
- Zoos
- Rescue and emergency services — fire departments (including volunteer) and ambulance and helicopter services
- Emergency or disaster aid funds
- Hospitals and nursing homes
- Outpatient services
- Hospices
- Blood banks
- Rural medical facility
- Health clinic
- Hospital auxiliaries
- Any organization that advocates, supports, or practices discrimination based upon age, ethnicity, gender, national origin, disability, race, size, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background
All Cisco products include five years of Cisco SMARTnet service and support on both hardware and software. After that coverage expires, donation recipients are strongly encouraged to renew their SMARTnet service and support agreement annually, for as long as they own the equipment or until that equipment is declared end of life (EOL) and no longer supported by Cisco.
An organization may receive no more than one donation of Cisco products per fiscal year.
Requests may be partially fulfilled: Due to the nature of the network design, product availability, and fiscal year schedules, all product donations are subject to change or delay without notice. Cisco reserves the right to substitute functionally equivalent products for any request.
Cisco products may not be transferred or resold.
Cisco Donations Program Information
Cisco Systems is pleased to partner with TechSoup Canada to donate an assortment of wired and wireless networking hardware products to organizations that primarily serve economically disadvantaged people.
All Cisco donation requests are subject to approval and may take up to 26 weeks for complete fulfillment. Product availability may cause products in the same request to be shipped separately.
For further information about Cisco’s Community and Philanthropy programs, please see Cisco Community Investment. You may also want to visit our Cisco Useful Links section.
