GiveCard, a nonprofit organization that uses financial technology to power direct giving to the most vulnerable communities, has partnered with Highnote, the world’s most modern card issuance platform, to launch a new prepaid debit card program.
This enables shelters, non-profits, and governments to scale cash transfer programs and quickly serve the needs of their target community.
About 45% of the 1.8 million registered non-profits in the US have budgets set aside for providing assistance to low-income and vulnerable individuals. In the past, this budget was allocated mostly to providing services. However, recent research suggests that direct monetary assistance contributes to greater positive outcomes including reduced poverty and increased school attendance. While many organizations are moving away from the service-based model, they struggle with how to effectively provide direct monetary assistance to the individuals they serve in an increasingly cashless world. Setting up and navigating debit card infrastructure is typically a year-long process for non-profits who do it themselves. In addition to being time-consuming and expensive, it distracts the organization from its core mission.
GiveCard offers debit cards for distribution to any organization that directly interacts with and provides services to low-income and vulnerable individuals. Their vision is to serve these communities by offering a direct cash transfer program within a day. That way, more governments can adopt programs such as guaranteed income and allow individuals to progress towards independence and permanent housing. In addition, more low-income and vulnerable individuals can develop trust in digital cash options, ending their reliance on predatory lending systems.
“Highnote is the innovator we’ve been looking for,” said Lurein Perera, GiveCard’s founder. “Their developer-friendly APIs represent a departure from legacy providers which often have bulky, complex processes and lack the ability to customize and scale at the velocity GiveCard’s customers need. With Highnote as a partner, we are well-positioned to execute on our vision and enable all non-profit and government programs to implement direct cash transfer programs effectively.”
Highnote’s advanced issuer-processor Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow GiveCard to collect top-level aggregated transaction data (such as spend category) that helps inform policy conversations to better serve experimental pilot programs such as guaranteed income or direct cash transfers. Currently, the only way to understand spending habits after cash or check disbursements are made, is through time-consuming surveys that track a very small subset of participants, thus resulting in low government adoption.
“This partnership ushers in a new wave of direct giving in a world that has become increasingly cashless,” said John Macllwaine, Co-Founder and CEO at Highnote. “We believe financial technology can unleash tremendous power to create a greater good for our society. We’ve built Highnote to be an all-in-one card issuer-processer and program manager so innovative enterprises like GiveCard can execute on their mission and make the world a better place.“
GiveCard Mastercard Prepaid Card is issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to a license by Mastercard International. Mastercard is a registered trademark, and the circles design is a trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated.