Ride Out the Wave #2: What A Ride!

You people are amazing! The second Ride Out the Wave concert was a success beyond our wildest hopes. Over 6,000 of you heard Keith Greeninger play as the sun set - and even more of you bought gift cards. Man, did you buy gift cards. More than 7,000 purchases happened during the event and another 5,000 came in over the last three days. This weekend we estimate you pushed easily more than $200,000 back into the local economy.

We were shocked that this wave turned out to be so big, and we’re sorry we missed the mark for some of you.

“THANK YOU SO MUCH!! We are already getting gift card purchases coming in!! So amazing the community support. Thank you all.”

This event had more than four times the matching funds as the last event thanks to Looker Data Science, Community Foundation, Amazon, and the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. And even though we raised the match price point from $25 to $50, you blew through those funds in the first 15 minutes. We’re now sorting through the thousands of receipt submission forms, confirming purchases with businesses, and distributing matched funds this week. Obviously we can’t match everyone who made a purchase, but we’ll let you know by email this week if yours made it in time.

“This was a lifeline for us.”

Ride Out the Wave is a handful of volunteer tech employees who threw together a site to make it simple for locals to get cash into the hands of favorite small businesses. We teamed up with Santa Cruz Works to get the word out to businesses and gift card buyers, ran across some economic development agency matching funds, and on April 3 held a Facebook Live concert featuring Taylor Rae. The model worked, so we rounded up more funding and ramped up the promotion.

“You guys are the absolute BEST!! I'm over here ugly crying at all of the gift cards pouring in. This community is so amazing ❤️.”

Frankly, you crushed our systems, our coffers, and our worries that nobody was paying attention. On one hand, we’re thrilled things worked out so well. On the other, we’ve unintentionally disappointed some gift card buyers who wanted the match, and caused extra stress to the very businesses we wanted to support. Please remember: it’s our shortcoming and not theirs. We hope you can forgive us, keep your purchases, and look forward to redeeming those gift cards in real life when we’re all out in the world again.

Most importantly, we’re relieved to see stimulus money starting to arrive. Please be patient this week as we finish up the work and email you with your matching status. Don’t ask businesses about your matching status since we’re the ones working on it. Instead, read this Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and if you still have a question after the week has passed reach out to promo@rideoutthewave.org.

A video of the concert will be available by the first week of May. Go to Keith’s website, purchase music, or send him a tip.

For details about the event and the matching funds processing, see our Frequently Asked Questions.

Honored to be a part of such an amazing community.

Drew, Rex, and the volunteer devs from Amazon
Doug, Adrian, Sasha, and Matthew from Santa Cruz Works