Starlinks for Good is an informal group of Starlink owners who temporarily lend their Starlinks to others for various humanitarian purposes.
Many of us have had several generations of Starlinks and have lent them to groups related to ham radio, long-term recovery in natural disasters, small nonprofits, and local community projects.
No, not at all. We all bought our Starlinks (non-discounted in most cases) and often lend them to causes we deem worthy.
Starlink for Good is not a for-profit service, so borrowing a Starlink from an affiliated member should (in theory) cost nothing. Those of us who signed up are looking to maximize the good our Starlinks do when they are not being used and are not making a profit.
In some cases (depending on your request), the owner of the requested Starlink may ask that certain costs be covered (e.g., subscription cost per month, covering fuel to drive something to you, etc.). Please note that the arrangement is between the requester and provider and is otherwise assumed to be zero.
If you ever feel like someone is taking advantage of their association with our group, please let us know immediately. This is not the intention of our group, and it's not the expectations we set for those joining. We are committed to maintaining the integrity of our group and your feedback is crucial in this process.
Effective communication is not only a key form of assistance but is crucial in emergency response, long-term relief, and other humanitarian projects. (You often hear the phrase “comm is aid” conveying this idea).
Since effective communication is the first vital piece needed to coordinate everything else, we dedicated to creating a grassroots group to make it easier for individuals with Starlinks to be a force multiplier for others in their local community.
In the present day, a LEO satellite with a downlink connection of 100Mbps (and potentially 10Mbps uplink) is a game-changer. It enables the transmission of crucial documents, instant messaging, inventory updates, and even basic video conferencing. Nonprofits and NGOs not only require this service, but they often need assistance in implementing additional customizations onsite to fully utilize this technology.
Some of the past projects we’ve supported include:
Ham radio events, such as ARRL Field Day
WiFi for fairgrounds sheltering survivors of a major disaster
Out of band access for municipalities under cyber attacks
Backup Internet for volunteer groups assisting public safety (parades, marathons, races)
Temporary Starlink until a more permanent Starlink can be purchased or donated
Nonprofit conferences in areas with limited Internet coverage
EOCs (emergency operations center) with WAN interruptions
WiFi for firefighters in a remote fire camp
Pop-up services after a disaster, such as kitchens and clinics (go go WCK!)
Telnet backup for Winlink stations (yes, amateur radio is still very relevant, even in a world of thousands of LEO satellites!)
Temporary Internet for coordinating PtP microwave links
This is by no means a comprehensive list of acceptable requests, and at this point, we honestly don’t have strict criteria for inbound requests other than asking you to make sure that your project is “working for the greater good.”
We leave this final decision to the fellow members who read your inbound request, as they will determine whether or not it’s worth their time, effort, and risk to lend their gear to you.
While many organizations (including the Musk Foundation) donate Starlinks, the overhead involved (formal approval process, transportation costs, volunteer overhead, etc) can add up very quickly. In many of these cases, the organization donating these resources may even want to first create an MOU or make sure that your mission aligns with their mission, or (for publicity reasons) they may require their donation to only go to a particular area (e.g., a specific area affected by a Hurricane).
Many disasters are undeclared, meaning no funds are devoted to alleviating problems, nor is the event publicized outside the local news. We see some of the most significant positive impacts being done by small groups in these areas who cannot easily apply for these Starlinks, nor can they give write-offs for Starlink donations (and any supplies needed).
Since most Starlink owners are on terrestrial-based Internet most of the time, we’d like to see the unused Starlink cycles put to their best use. They do no good collecting dust in our glamping kit!
Please fill out our Starlink request form with as much information as possible about your needs and timelines. This request will go to all of our members, and they will have the option of contacting you to arrange the transfer.
If you'd like to request by simply emailing, you can do so by emailing help@starlinksforgood.com
A Starlink (by itself) may not be enough, as you might also need the following things to make sure your install is successful:
Physical equipment: pole to mount Dishy, mounting brackets, ladders, kits to secure transport
Installation tools: drill and bits, silicone sealant, compass
Supplies: zip ties, ethernet plugs, stakes, pole to fish cable through walls
Cables / Adapters: Ethernet cable (and crimp gear), power cables, extension cords, USB-C to barrel adapters
Power: power strips, batteries, fuel generator, solar panels / inverter
Networking Gear: indoor access points, meshed APs to extend coverage, router, DHCP server, firewall
Applications: speed testing apps, compass application, DNS filtering
Out of band communications: Satellite based texting (to communicate with others before Starlink is setup), radios (to make communications easier when traveling in caravans)
MOAR INTERNETZ PLEASE!
High-speed 5G hotspot (our favorite unlimited for $50/mo is the T-Mobile plan, which provides 100 - 600 Mbps download speeds)
Portable 5G hotspots (Neargear has a nice lineup, with the Nighthawk M6 is one of our favorite portable 5G hotspots)
A load balancer (e.g., round-robin traffic between multiple Starlinks or user a Starlink as a secondary link to another WAN connection, such as a 5G router)
SIM cards -- FirstNET, CBRS, eSIMs, unlimited ones donated by carrier DRT groups (Verizon, TMo, AT&T, local MVNOs), etc.
In your request form, please specify any extra things you might need (if you can think of them).
If you aren’t sure what else you need, please note in your form that you need to talk to someone first. The Starlink owners likely has a surplus of whatever you need and (if they know someone will appreciate their efforts) will likely lend a hand to help you set it all up properly.
Absolutely. In these cases, we ask that you cover the basic cost that a volunteer incurred to set this up to you.
Ironically, we often see Starlinks break on bigger nonprofits deployment (likely because work is being done by volunteers untrained in Starlinks) and ask that you make sure your volunteers know how to transport, setup, install, stow, and demobilize the equipment per the lender’s request.
In all of our cases, our personal Starlinks are not insured, which means that a field mismap would be incurred by us (as lenders) unless you made a different arrangement prior to the equipment dropoff.
If you want a guaranteed service with SLAs, we recommend you officially rent. A million things can (and do!) go wrong, and you may have other critical operations that are too important to 100% rely on a volunteer group of people.
Since these Starlinks belong to individuals, it is up to their discretion to whom they lend their equipment and time. In many cases, they have already lent out their current cache and are waiting for it back before they can accommodate the next request.
If you are in the United States, you might consider contacting other nonprofit groups with sizable caches that are available for humanitarian purposes, such as ITDRC. Other groups, such as Footprint Project, also sometimes get Starlink donations in major disasters (as they build solar-based microgrids in areas with poor power). You are welcome to reach out to them and tell them we referred you. If you know of any other groups with a cache set aside for humanitarian use, please share with the group so we can try to refer requests we think are worthy.
If you feel like you put your best foot forward and got no answer, consider if your cause just doesn’t resonate with others. You might be part of a religious group that others don’t consider inclusive, or you might be part of a group that some religious Starlink owner doesn’t like. In the end, we (as a group) don’t have little to no control over these factors and are more focused on standardize the inbound requests and distribute them to local Starlink owners who want to help.
Do the right thing. While you should know what that looks like, it ultimately depends on your arrangement with those lending you their Starlink, extra gear, and time.
In general, SpaceX is good about sending replacement gear as it is highly motivated to ensure people continue to be subscribers. Fixing broken gear is a huge inconvenience (Starlink support can be painfully slow), so we ask that you be careful with other people’s gear and then offer to do the right thing when events don’t go as planned.
Remember, these are not just devices; they are personal possessions entrusted to you because the owners believe in the value of your work for the community. Your responsible handling of their possessions is a testament to the trust they placed in you.
Accidents happen, and we (as a group) will try to step in to help alleviate or mitigate some of these risks. As far as theft, Starlink support will be very helpful in tracking down the dish and disabling service. As for as breakage, that’s determined on a case by case basis.
In general, we tend to trust people to do the right things, rather than obsess about them not doing the right thing. If you did everything 100% right and things still went wrong, we will work together as a group to see how we can help (that’s the reason we created this group of like minded Starlink owners).
First, join our mailing list. There, you will see inbound requests in your area.
Secondly, think about the causes you want to lend. We have some guidelines we ask you to follow (e.g., don't take advantage of a situation, don’t use our group to try to find Starlink renters) and some suggested terms we'd recommend you arrange with the group of people you are lending to.
Third, tell all your friends with underutilized Starlinks about this group. This sort of thing doesn't grow without people sharing the news.
First, we ask that you make sure it is 100% working proper to transfer:
Satellite setup and working
Bandwidth proof
Starlink app showing white lines to Dishy and to sky
Pictures of your Starlink showing the condition it’s in prior
Next, we ask that you consider changing your account to a password that you don’t mind sharing. The end user will need this to run tests and maybe even change the ID, but given the security concerns, we understand if you don’t want to do this.
Finally, we ask you to help ask the person other questions to make sure they are planning correctly.
Do they know how to use the Starlink app?
Open or closed SSID? (we suggest closed)
How many people will use this? (make sure they don’t exhaust the DHCP pool, one of the most common problems)
How will this be powered? DC or AC? Please share the pros / cons of each power type.
We would argue yes, you should still join.
There are lots of things to help with, even if you don’t have a Starlink to lend. e.g.
prioritizing inbound requests
delivering kits
teaching others proper use
adapting and customizing once on site
troubleshooting
helping draft policy guidelines
You may also be a nonprofit with a surplus of gear (cables, networking equipment, etc.) and want to look for opportunities to donate your excess or yesteryear gear to other worthy causes. Your “yesteryear” gear might be the perfect thing that helps a community get through some difficult times.
As a Starlink owner, you probably see the need of being part of a community that can help each other troubleshoot field issues. We often lend each other our kits to help troubleshoot broken cables, dishes, and routers more easily. This can be particularly helpful when dealing with Starlink support, especially given the high monthly service fees (which they sometimes do reimburse you for, to be fair).
Also, as a Starlink owner, you might see gaps in your current setup and want advice (testing speeds, accommodating more clients with a DHCP, blocking “bad things”, extending wireless coverage, etc). This group has done just about everything imaginable here and is a good one to help.