Obviously, you can benefit best from donated equipment when it fits with your long term plan for purchasing and replacing equipment. Thus, when your organization is offered donations, you should be able to refer to an established protocol that dictates whether or not they should be accepted. First of all, all of the standards established in the organization's system architecture should be followed. For that reason, donors should have access to the organization's published system architecture and any other standards established for technology projects. Staff should screen potential donations to ensure compliance with adopted standards.
Donations can be useful to supplement available funds and equipment.
However, to avoid invalidating warranties and creating increased future expenses for maintenance and support, all donations should comply with the same standards that would have been followed if these goods and services had been purchased by the institution. Just as with purchases, donations come with associated costs for installation, training, maintenance, power supplies, facilities, associated hardware or software, human resources, etc. In cases where donations are not in compliance with established standards, the donor might even be asked to underwrite the additional maintenance and support that the donation will require.