I've found that in most areas there is a company available to do recycling of small e-waste items and give the proceeds to a charity of your choice. One in the Rochester, NY area is Imagine It - Fundraising through Recycling.
http://www.imaginerecycling.com/index.php They focus on printer cartridges, cell phones, PDAs, MP3s and other mobile devices. They have collection points through much of western NY and are reliable and consistent with their donation tracking.
When I heard of FIRST's e-recycling project, I envisioned that it would be for used computers and other electronics as well. What I have learned through the recycling efforts of my own company is that most recyclers of electronics cannot consistently generate enough revenue off of the large electronics to make them viable as a fundraiser. CRT monitors and old TVs still are high cost items and generally offset the revenue generated from other items, especially in the ratio collected in community collection events. If that is what FIRST was trying to get established then I would guess they have found the same results in their test market.