Community Foundation Santa Cruz County worked with InComm InCentives to distribute more than $1 million in aid through gift cards to families affected by flooding. InComm's case study describes the response after a levee breach in Santa Cruz County, California, in 2023. [1]
Gift-card delivery within the foundation’s disaster response
The foundation wanted a way to provide flexible spending for households facing immediate recovery needs, including shelter, food, water and supplies. It selected Visa gift cards rather than rewards restricted to one named retailer. [1]
InComm configured a custom catalogue for the foundation and provided a dedicated team member to support the setup. According to the case study, the catalogue, initial orders and shipments were arranged within 48 hours, allowing distribution to begin in under two days. [1]
The foundation could track disbursements after placing an order, providing visibility over shipments intended for local families. InComm described those tools and the range of available cards as part of adapting its incentive platform to the relief programme. [1]
The same custom catalogue remained available for later orders as the foundation continued delivering assistance. That allowed the initial setup to support both the immediate response and subsequent distributions. [1]
The reported aid total exceeds $1 million. The case illustrates use of InComm's existing procurement and fulfilment service for a nonprofit relief effort, with the foundation determining the beneficiaries and the funds allocated to them. [1]
The foundation’s own 2023 grant ledger records USD 1,004,156 for disaster-relief emergency financial assistance in Pajaro and USD 123,500 for Capitola small-business disaster relief. These named entries place the gift-card case within the same foundation’s wider response, but the ledger does not specify the payment instruments or identify either amount as InComm transactions. [S02]
Selected 2023 foundation disaster-relief grants
Two explicitly named disaster-relief entries in Community Foundation Santa Cruz County’s 2023 Community & Discretionary Grants ledger. These are foundation grant amounts, not a reconciliation of InComm card disbursements.
USD
Tap or hover for details. All values are also available in the data table.
Source
Selected, non-exhaustive grant entries for different relief channels. The ledger does not identify their payment instruments or match either entry to InComm’s reported total. No card count, beneficiary count, gift-card redemption or vendor throughput is inferred. Do not add these entries to the foundation’s broader storm-response total or its nested Pajaro nonprofit-assistance figure.
Show data tableHide data table
| Category | Amount granted |
|---|---|
| Pajaro: emergency financial assistance | 1,004,156 USD |
| Capitola: small-business disaster relief | 123,500 USD |
The foundation separately reports USD 3.5 million in grants responding to the January and March 2023 storms and floods, including USD 1.3 million for nonprofits assisting people affected by the Pajaro flood. The latter is part of the broader total. Neither amount should be added to the selected ledger entries or treated as total gift-card distribution. [S03]
InComm’s page displays October 28, 2023 and describes the 2023 levee breach, yet its closing paragraph places the aid total in the previous year. That internal timing discrepancy prevents assigning an exact disbursement period from the case study alone. The reported total of more than USD 1 million and the 48-hour setup remain attributed operator claims; the foundation ledger supplies separate 2023 grant evidence, without proving a numerical match. [1] [S02]
In this article
Maya Bennett
Maya Bennett covers customer loyalty, employee rewards and incentive programmes for Gift Card News.