Blackhawk Network Helps Nonprofit, Gov’t Partners Distribute $250M In Assistance

Blackhawk Network recently announced that it has assisted dozens of nonprofit and government partners in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom issue an overall $250 million in help through “hundreds of thousands” of prepaid and gift cards in the last few months — connecting families impacted by the pandemic with resources to pay for unforeseen or typical household expenditures, according to an announcement.

Assistance disbursement can be customized to the requirements of each organization with Blackhawk’s capabilities while offering the most possible flexibility to recipients. The company’s partners can avoid the historically bulky and costly process of issuing, printing and sending out paper checks by harnessing prepaid and gift cards as types of disaster recovery help.

“This crisis has taken its toll on countless families across the world, and we are proud that our nonprofit and government agency partners can rely on us to quickly deliver massive prepaid and gift card orders to some of the people who need assistance most right now,” said Jeff Haughton, SVP, incentives, corporate development and strategy at Blackhawk Network. “Any organizations may not realize these cards are incredibly versatile, go-to solutions for emergencies because they are much faster to order, issue, and deliver than paper checks.”

Haughton also noted that prepaid and gift cards are making sure that recipients have access to funds to utilize as required since a number of them are underbanked or unbanked. Furthermore, recipients may not have access to a financial institution on the frontlines.

Blackhawk Network provides prepaid and gift cards through a tangible and virtual form. The company says that orders can usually be turned around in a matter of days. Tangible cards can be given out in person or sent directly to recipients, while digital cards are sent through email.

The news comes as the Blackhawk team has discovered that mobile wallet adoption in the United States rose from 38 percent usage among consumers polled pre-COVID to 55 percent.