PA Wilds digital community gift card offers new opportunities for Wilds Cooperative members

The Shop the PA Wilds digital gift card is a new program that is being launched in the PA Wilds, and it will offer a new opportunity for businesses participating in the Wilds Cooperative of Pennsylvania value chain network to attract more customers.

Initiated as part of the Wilds Are Working: A Lifestyle Experience for Remote Workers campaign, which seeks to encourage remote workers to test out living in designated communities across the Pennsylvania Wilds, the digital gift card program will extend beyond that initiative and allow anyone to purchase a gift card that can then be used at any of the participating businesses. However, the selected remote workers for the Wilds Are Working program, being piloted this year in the communities of Bellefonte and Kane, will each receive a stipend to spend while living in the region, and those stipends will be distributed via a Shop the PA Wilds digital gift card. The gift card program, powered by Yiftee, will encourage those remote workers – and anyone else who receives a Shop the PA Wilds digital gift card – to explore the Pennsylvania Wilds and shop at local establishments while doing so.

“Nestled among our region’s more than 2 million acres of public lands are beautiful gateway communities that are brimming with unique establishments, such as specialty retailers, restaurants, breweries, outfitters, galleries, and other service providers. We want to help explorers find those experiences and the unique opportunities and products that they each offer. That’s why we’re so excited to launch this new digital gift card program,” explained Abbi Peters, COO of the PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship, Inc., the nonprofit that manages the Wilds Cooperative of PA network and regional lifestyle marketing for the PA Wilds Conservation Landscape. “In addition to being a new program for our members in the Wilds Cooperative, it’s an exciting way for our organization to be able to collaborate with and uplift communities across the region. Some already have digital and traditional gift cards and incentivization programs that can complement this really well!”

Bellefonte, for example, launched a digital gift card program last year, and has been beneficial for local businesses.

“When Downtown Bellefonte Inc. rolled out a community-wide gift card program through Yiftee, we had one main intention in mind: Keep local dollars local. Since launching it during the holiday season of 2021, that’s proved to be a success. Multiple gift card recipients have shared that they’ve found items or shops that they wouldn’t have necessarily known about had they not been given the card — so not only is the card providing a monetary injection to businesses, it’s building much-needed brand awareness for those businesses participating as well,” said Ellen Matis, president of Downtown Bellefonte, Inc.

Matis noted that the rollout of the PA Wilds digital gift card, will allow Downtown Bellefonte, Inc. to serve as ambassadors for the entire Wilds region while encouraging visitors to check out Bellefonte and local shops as part of their regional travel experience.

HOW BUSINESSES PARTICIPATE

The Shop the PA Wilds digital gift card can be used at any establishment that has signed up for the program. To be eligible to participate, establishments must be located in the Pennsylvania Wilds and members of the Wilds Cooperative of PA, and they must also be able to accept MasterCard credit cards within their point of sale system as the digital gift cards are manually keyed into a POS.

Existing members of the Wilds Cooperative of PA are invited to sign up by:

Log into your Wilds Cooperative of PA account at www.wildscopa.org/manage-account/
Visit your respective WCO Branding Assets page at www.wildscopa.org/branding-assets/
Click the Shop the PA Wilds Digital Gift Card asset, and then scroll to the bottom of the landing page to “Apply to Join”
You will receive an email with an activation code to enable your POS to accept the digital gift cards. Here’s a short video to showcase how you, as a merchant, will be able to process sales.

Not yet a member of the Wilds Cooperative of PA? Learn more and join today at www.wildscopa.org/about.

HOW SHOPPERS PARTICIPATE

Anyone looking to provide a gift card can simply go to the Shop the PA Wilds digital gift card website and select the amount of money they would like to share via a gift card. Simply choose a recipient, and the digital gift card will be shared via email or text message. The recipient can then use that digital gift card, which is available electronically or by printing it onto paper, to make purchases at participating merchants across the PA Wilds region. More information coming soon on how to access the portal for purchasing the digital gift cards.

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