~ Getting Over $1.8M $2.7M Into Rural Communities For COVID-19 Economic Recovery ~ 

UPDATE: As of mid-December, we’ve gotten $2,706,000 into the hands of small businesses and pockets of shoppers through 5 Matching Gift Card sales! Other communities would have just given the $900k funding in grants to a few small business. This program tripled the money and got it to 266 businesses and 7,620 shoppers in two counties.

During the past several months, my staff and I have headed up an e-commerce project that has put over $1.8M $2.7M into the hands of businesses and consumers in rural Virginia. Five Matching Gift Card Program sales to date have generated direct funding for local businesses and 50% discounts to shoppers for a wide range of products and services like child care, car repairs, dentistry, fuel oil, and of course shopping and restaurants.

We expanded an existing online marketplace, ShopLocalVGA.com, that we initially developed for Virginia’s Growth Alliance economic development region in 2014. This new project began with Tina Morgan, Tourism Director for Mecklenburg County which is one of VGA’s member communities, calling to ask my thoughts on running a matching gift card program through the site.

The marketplace already had the capability for shoppers to buy from multiple vendors in a single transaction, with payments automatically split between vendors. After strategizing logistics and delivery methods, we developed the new Gift Card capability which included generation of a unique serial number for each certificate sold. Each serial number was embedded in a digital gift certificate and delivered via email.

Customers paid via PayPal with funds distributed directly into the PayPal accounts of the three small town Chambers of Commerce in Mecklenburg County, based on which Chambers’ businesses the vouchers were purchased for. The Chambers then distributed the proceeds directly to the businesses for whom vouchers had been purchased.

The initial Gift Card Matching sale in May had a budget of $22,000 in matching funds and sold out in 1.5 hours. The sale was so popular Mecklenburg County has held two more to date, one with $100,000 in matching funds and another with $380,000.

Shoppers snapped up the deals in no time; during the last sale, one of the Chambers sold out in an hour and another sold out in 3 hours. The largest Chamber had a larger budget and sold out in several days.

Mecklenburg County’s success has generated attention nationwide, with other organizations inquiring how they were able to pull it off.

When Isle of Wight County, Virginia, reached out with questions, Virginia’s Growth Alliance Executive Director Jeff Reed offered to let them use ShopLocalVGA to run their own Gift Card Matching Program. Isle of Wight had $100,000 in matching funds that sold out in less than 1.5 hours, and they plan to have another sale in December. Update: IoW’s second sale in December had $300,000 in matching funds.

To date, businesses and shoppers in the rural communities have received a total of $1,806,000 and a total of 5,629 shoppers have benefited from the sales. The next Isle of Wight County sale will bring the total economic impact to over $2.1 million. Update mid-December: To date, a total of $2,706,000 in cash has gone in cash and matching funds to 266 businesses and 7,620 shoppers in the two counties.

I’m very proud of the way that we, Tina, and Jeff worked together to creatively distribute CARES funding in a way that has benefited hundreds of small businesses and thousands of families. That’s what it’s all about!