Where to Donate Your Old Phone to Help Domestic Violence Survivors in 2026
This article was produced with AI assistance. Sources are listed at the end.
You can donate an old phone — working or broken — to a nonprofit that refurbishes or redistributes devices to domestic violence survivors and victim-service agencies, such as the 911 Cell Phone Bank or a local shelter's phone drive. One underappreciated fact makes this worth doing even with a damaged or disconnected phone: under federal rules, a phone with no SIM card and no active service plan can still dial 911 in the United States.
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a designation Congress has renewed every year since 1989. It's a fitting moment to look at what actually happens to the phone sitting in your junk drawer — because for someone rebuilding a safety plan, that phone can be the difference between isolation and a working connection to help.
Why does October matter for old phone donations?
Congress passed Public Law 101-112 in October 1989, designating that month as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month — a designation renewed annually since, building on a Day of Unity first observed in 1981. Phone and electronics drives tend to cluster around this month, but the underlying need, and the donation programs themselves, run year-round.
Can a phone without a service plan actually call 911?
Yes. Under FCC rules (47 CFR § 20.18), every wireless carrier must connect a 911 call "without respect to their call validation process" — meaning the network isn't allowed to check whether you're a paying subscriber before connecting an emergency call. A phone with no SIM, no minutes, and no contract can still reach 911 as long as it's charged and within range of any carrier's signal. That single rule is why donated-phone programs can hand someone a device that works for emergencies immediately, even before it's assigned a new line.
How common is domestic violence, and why does a spare phone help?
The scale of the problem is larger than most people assume. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2023/2024 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, published in 2026, more than 1 in 3 women (nearly 43.5 million) and more than 1 in 6 men (20.7 million) in the U.S. have experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. The same CDC page cites separate data from the National Violent Death Reporting System showing that about 1 in 5 U.S. homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner, and that more than half of female homicide victims are killed by a current or former male partner.
A private, untracked phone matters in this context because an abuser who controls a shared family plan can also monitor calls, texts, and location on that line. A separate device — even a basic, donated one — can mean a channel to a hotline, an attorney, or 911 that isn't visible to anyone else.
A disconnected phone can still dial 911 under federal law — which is exactly what makes it worth donating.
Where can you actually send an old phone?
A few vetted options accept phones in any condition, including broken ones:
- 911 Cell Phone Bank, a nonprofit founded in 2004, reports that as of 2026 it has supplied devices to more than 300,000 survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking; it accepts working or non-working phones by mail or drop-off.
- Local domestic violence shelters and coalitions often run their own phone drives, sometimes partnered with regional recyclers; a quick call to your local shelter or coalition will tell you whether they're collecting this month.
- Police department victim-services units in some cities collect phones directly for distribution to survivors — check with your local department rather than assuming this is available everywhere.
Before you ship or drop off anything, factory-reset the device (Settings → erase/reset) to clear your personal data and remove it from any "Find My" or carrier account — reputable programs wipe devices themselves too, but doing it yourself first is good practice. For more on protecting your own data as you pass along a device, see our guide to smart-home and device privacy.
Quick takeaways
- Donate even a broken phone — many programs still want it
- Factory-reset it before handing it over
- Confirm the drive is currently active first
- A disconnected phone can still dial 911
What if you'd rather keep the phone than give it away?
Not every old phone needs to leave the house. A device you want to keep in the household still has a second life as a dedicated home security camera — recording continuously, with footage archived to a private cloud you can check from a web browser, rather than sitting unused in a drawer. Apps like iCameraPlus turn an old iOS or Android phone into exactly that: a camera with remote start/stop and a dimmed screen, so it can run quietly in a hallway, nursery, or entryway. If you're weighing whether your specific phone still qualifies for that kind of second life, our piece on what 2026 research says about repurposing an old phone covers the hardware limits to check first. You can also look at how a phone-based home security camera works before deciding between donating, repurposing, or recycling.
Either path — donating or reusing — keeps a working device out of a landfill. The U.S. EPA's most recent Facts and Figures report on materials and recycling, covering 2018 data (the agency's latest published figures), found that only about 38.5% of consumer electronics generated that year were collected for recycling, with the rest going to landfill or storage. A drawer is better than a landfill, but a drawer still isn't doing anyone any good.
Quick answers
Do I need to remove my SIM card before donating a phone?
Yes — remove your SIM and any memory card, then factory-reset the device so your accounts, photos, and messages are cleared before it leaves your hands.
Will a donated phone keep my old phone number?
No. Reputable programs reset devices and assign survivors a new number and service plan; your personal number and account aren't transferred along with the hardware.
Is it better to donate, recycle, or repurpose an old phone?
All three beat leaving it in a drawer or trashing it — donate if the phone still powers on and you want it to help a survivor directly, recycle through a certified e-waste program if it's badly damaged, and repurpose it as a home camera or baby/pet monitor if you'd rather keep a working device in use at home.
