Connecting hope. Changing lives.
At Connect Refuge, we make it simple to turn your support into meaningful connection. Your donation helps provide airtime, mobile data, and refurbished devices to displaced individuals and families who need them most.
Our process
We offer a straightforward process to ensure your support reaches those who need it most, creating vital connections and fostering resilience.
1. You give
Make a secure donation or give a gently used mobile device. Every contribution helps us provide essential communication and digital resources.
2. We provide
Your support helps provide airtime, mobile data bundles, and refurbished phones and devices to people experiencing displacement and hardship.
3. We connect
We work with trusted organizations and community partners to help deliver connectivity and devices to people who need them most.
Connection creates opportunity.
With access to a phone and connectivity, people can stay in touch with loved ones, contact emergency services, access education, and pursue employment.
Displaced individuals and families
Connect Refuge specifically helps displaced individuals and families. We address the critical challenges of isolation and lack of access to essential services by providing reliable digital connectivity.
Our impact
The best possible result is that a displaced person, who was disconnected, can use reliable digital connectivity to reconnect with loved ones, access essential services, pursue education or employment, and take meaningful steps toward rebuilding an independent and stable life.
Our commitment to your privacy
Your Data. Your Privacy. Our Responsibility.
Donate Your Device With Confidence
We understand that your phone or tablet may contain personal photos, messages, contacts, passwords, accounts, and other private information.
At Connect Refuge, protecting your privacy is an important part of our device donation process. We encourage every donor to remove personal information and reset their device before donating it. Once a device is received, we handle it responsibly and work to ensure that personal information is not passed on to another user.
Your device may have a second life. Your personal information should not.
How Connect Refuge Protects Your Data
1. Prepare Your Device
Before donating your phone, tablet, or other device, we ask donors to back up their information and remove their personal accounts, passwords, SIM cards, and other private information.
We provide simple instructions to help you prepare your device before handing it over.
Learn How to Prepare Your Device →
2. Secure Device Handling
Once we receive a donated device, we treat it as a potentially sensitive piece of personal technology.
Devices are handled responsibly and kept under controlled access during the donation, assessment, preparation, and distribution process.
Our goal is simple: protect your information while preparing your device to help someone else.
3. Data Removal Before Reuse
Devices selected for reuse are prepared before they are provided to another individual or organization.
Where applicable, devices undergo appropriate data-removal procedures before being redistributed.
We do not intentionally transfer a donor's personal information, accounts, photographs, contacts, or other private data to a recipient.
4. Devices That Cannot Be Reused
Not every donated device can be placed back into service.
Devices that are damaged, obsolete, or otherwise unsuitable for reuse may be directed toward responsible recycling or an appropriate downstream recycling partner.
Our goal is to maximize the useful life of donated technology while minimizing unnecessary electronic waste.
A Secure Chain of Custody
From the moment your device is donated, responsible handling matters.
Donation → Secure Handling → Assessment → Data Protection → Reuse or Responsible Recycling
We work to maintain appropriate controls throughout this process so that donated devices are handled by authorized individuals and are directed toward their intended purpose.
For larger corporate, institutional, or bulk donations, Connect Refuge can work with donors to establish additional documentation and handling procedures appropriate to the size and sensitivity of the donation.
Why Data Security Matters
A smartphone can contain an extraordinary amount of personal information.
Your device may contain:
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Personal photographs and videos
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Text messages and emails
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Contacts
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Social media accounts
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Banking and financial applications
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Passwords and saved credentials
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Location information
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Documents and other personal files
That's why responsible device donation begins with responsible data protection.
We want you to feel confident that donating your device can help someone in need without putting your personal information at risk.
Before You Donate Your Device
For your protection, we recommend that you:
01 — Back Up Your Information
Save photos, contacts, documents, and other information you want to keep.
02 — Sign Out of Your Accounts
Remove your Apple ID, Google account, Samsung account, and other accounts associated with the device.
03 — Remove Your SIM Card
Remove your physical SIM card before donating the device.
04 — Remove Memory Cards
If your device contains a microSD or other removable storage card, remove it unless you specifically intend to donate it.
05 — Perform a Factory Reset
Reset the device according to the manufacturer's instructions.
06 — Remove Device Locks
Make sure activation locks, screen locks, and other protections have been properly removed so the device can be activated by its next user.
Donating a Device Should Be Simple.
You provide the device.
We help turn it into an opportunity.
A phone that is sitting unused in a drawer could become someone's connection to family, education, employment, healthcare, emergency services, and essential information.
Your old device may be old to you.
But to someone who has nothing, it can be a lifeline.
Give Your Device a Second Life
Help us connect displaced individuals and communities with the digital tools they need to communicate, learn, work, and move forward.
Donate a Device
Your device. Their connection. A greater opportunity.
Our Commitment
Connect Refuge is committed to responsible device donation, privacy-conscious handling, and maximizing the social value of donated technology.
As our device-reuse program grows, we will continue strengthening our data-security, chain-of-custody, refurbishment, and responsible-recycling procedures to meet recognized industry best practices.
Connecting people. Protecting privacy. Creating opportunity.