City seeking more businesses to sign up for its gift cards

With a desire to have the bulk of Canyon Lake businesses participating and able to accept the gift cards Canyon Lake shoppers will be spending, the City of Canyon Lake and the Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce is making a push to get businesses signed up.

The gift cards, which can be used at any registered Canyon Lake business, are going to be made available to shoppers to purchase and to spend locally as soon as Monday. The City of Canyon Lake will contribute a bonus amount to each purchased gift card, making the gift cards a substantial bargain for local shoppers.

The gift cards will only be able to be used at businesses which physically reside inside the city limits of Canyon Lake. The funds being added to the cards was made available to the city by the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The promotion tagged “Canyon Cash” will give the full sale amount customers spend with the gift card to the business. There is no fee for businesses to participate and there is no surcharge taken from the sale.

For a business to sign up, it needs to simply go to the chamber’s website, canyonlakechamber.org, and fill out the short form found there.

“When businesses sign up, they are logged into our system and then are sent a digital activation card within 24 hours,” City Management Analyst Tyler Ferrari said.

When the cards are available for purchase, the city and the chamber will release the website to the public and the cards can be purchased there.

Businesses must be located within the City of Canyon Lake and can be home-based businesses. They are not required to be members of the Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce, however, those businesses that are not members, but sign up for the program, can join the Chamber at discounted rates.

The cards will be in denominations of $25 (the city will add a free $10 bonus), $50 (the city will add a free $25 bonus) and $100 (the city will add a free $50 bonus). The city’s bonus money is coming from funds it received from ARPA, which are to be used to benefit its businesses.

“The City of Canyon Lake is pleased to be able to offer this program to its residents,” Tyler said. “This year, the City Council has made it a goal of the city to begin the implementation of our plans for ARPA funding, to expand community services and to maintain a positive relationship with local partners.”

This program helps the city meet its goal of finding ways to continue supporting local businesses, Tyler said. The city encourages all of its residents to take advantage of this program and help support its local businesses.

“The Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce is proud to partner with the City of Canyon Lake as we work together to implement this program,” Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce President Jeanne O’Dell said. ”The Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce is committed to engaging with and supporting chamber members and the business community at large. The Canyon Cash eGift Card program is a perfect example of that commitment. It is designed to help local businesses with pandemic recovery and most importantly, keeps the dollars local.”

The city is utilizing California vendor Yiftee to provide support for the program. Yiftee has provided communities across the country with the technology to begin similar programs and these programs have been immensely successful, Tyler said.

Once the $15,000 ARPA funds are exhausted, the city’s bonus it tacks onto each card will end. The gift cards will still be available for purchase, but their value will be just its denomination.

Canyon Lake businesses’ only requirement, besides the business being located in the City of Canyon Lake, is that the business needs to be able to accept Mastercard payments and do so by processing manually-entered transactions. Payments come to the business as would any Mastercard transaction.

The Chamber of Commerce is offering a discount on new chamber memberships for those who register for the Canyon Cash program. The cost of an annual Business Access membership will be reduced by $25.00 and a Business Access Plus membership will be reduced by $50.00.

The chamber membership discount is a one-time offer and applies to those businesses that are not current chamber members.