(Photo via UnSplash/AURELIEN CHATEAUDON)
On October 1, 2025, the United States federal government shut down. Among the many consequences was an unprecedented crisis: for the first time in its history, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was poised to suspend benefits to 42 million Americans. In San Francisco, that meant 112,000 residents across 82,000 households suddenly faced the prospect of losing the food assistance that put meals on their tables.
The traditional playbook for food emergencies—food banks, community meal programs, emergency distribution sites—couldn’t come close to meeting this moment. Food banks typically provide one meal for every nine meals that SNAP covers. Even with heroic efforts to scale up operations, the infrastructure simply wasn’t designed to replace an entire federal nutrition program. San Francisco needed something different: an immediate, comprehensive response that matched the magnitude of the crisis.
On October 29, three days before SNAP beneficiaries would see disruptions to their benefits, Crankstart, a San Francisco-based family foundation, and Mayor Daniel Lurie of San Francisco stood together on the steps of City Hall to announce an $18 million public-private partnership that would ensure every SNAP recipient in the city continued to have access to food. Six days after that announcement, the first residents were using new grocery-restricted debit cards to shop at their preferred stores. Within a matter of days, this initiative became a potential blueprint for crisis response in an era of federal instability.
Building the Partnership at Speed
The clock started ticking as the government shutdown entered its third week. The US Department of Agriculture issued a memo stating that on November 1, SNAP benefits would be disrupted, grimly adding, “Bottom line, the well has run dry.”
With this deadline looming, the San Francisco Human Services Agency (SFHSA) began designing a response. SFHSA tiered SNAP recipients by need and asked if Crankstart would help pay for nutrition assistance to just the first tier: households with children and zero-income seniors and adults with disabilities. In response, Crankstart asked: “Would the City cover half of the total cost of feeding all 112,000 SNAP recipients for the month of November?” If so, Crankstart would contribute the other half. This response transformed the scope of what was possible.
Within 24 hours of Crankstart’s challenge grant offer, the city’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved $9.1 million in emergency funds from the city’s reserves. Together, the $18 million from the city and Crankstart would provide SNAP replacement benefits to San Francisco's 82,000 affected households—not partial support, not limited tiers, but comprehensive coverage for every family that depended on the program.
Between the challenge and the commitment, Crankstart and SFHSA staff spent six intensive days rapidly designing the mechanism to deliver these dollars to SNAP recipients. The plumbing was critical: without immediate access to food, hunger and all its deleterious effects would follow.
The partnership architecture required four essential components, each serving a critical function:
- SFHSA served as the operational backbone. The agency brought comprehensive data on every SNAP recipient, designed the program model, and executed a citywide outreach campaign, mailing instructions to eligible households and establishing in-person distribution sites for those without reliable mail access. SFHSA also rapidly trained and mobilized hundreds of front-line program staff to telephonically assist people with card activation.
- Crankstart served as the philanthropic partner that transformed the initiative’s ambition. By accelerating its typical approval processes to meet the crisis timeline, Crankstart unlocked a comprehensive response instead of a limited one.
- The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank provided the essential fiscal infrastructure. As the designated 501(c)(3) intermediary, the Food Bank received and deployed both philanthropic and public funds. Their deep community relationships and trusted reputation lent immediate credibility to the emergency initiative.
- GiveCard delivered the technological infrastructure that made immediate distribution possible. GiveCard’s platform issued prepaid debit cards, verified recipients, restricted spending to groceries, and ensured that funds reached the right households securely—turning policy into purchasing power within days. A mission-driven for-profit company, GiveCard elected to waive card fees and staff costs during this emergency response effort.
The innovation at the heart of this partnership was the decision to move away from the traditional charity model of emergency food distribution. Instead of food boxes with predetermined contents, recipients received grocery-restricted debit cards that preserved their dignity and choice. They could shop at their preferred grocers, select culturally relevant foods, accommodate dietary restrictions and health needs, and maintain the same shopping patterns they had established with their SNAP benefits.
This wasn’t just faster than traditional emergency food response—it was fundamentally different in its respect for recipient agency and its recognition that people know best what their families need.
Speed, Scale, Equity, and Dignity
The San Francisco SNAP response demonstrates a replicable model built on four hallmarks that any jurisdiction can adapt to their local context.
Speed was essential—and achievable. In an arena where government contracts typically take months and large-scale program rollouts can take years, these partners designed, built, and launched a comprehensive emergency nutrition program in under two weeks. This was possible because of pre-positioned infrastructure, existing relationships, and operational agility. SFHSA already had comprehensive data on SNAP recipients, deep local relationships, emergency reserves, a distribution center, and the ability to employ emerging contracting provisions. Crankstart had existing relationships with both the city and the food bank, enabling rapid decisions without the need to build trust from scratch, as well as operating principles that prioritized agility.
Scale was achieved through a challenge grant model that leveraged philanthropic dollars to catalyze matching public investment. Crankstart’s $9 million commitment made it politically and practically feasible for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to approve matching funds. The scale also extended to the mobilization of human resources: SFHSA trained over 500 staff members to provide support to residents activating their cards.
Equity was embedded in every aspect of program design. Letters to recipients were translated into five languages, reflecting the linguistic diversity of San Francisco. For the approximately 9,000 SNAP recipients who are either unhoused or cannot reliably receive mail, SFHSA established in-person card distribution locations. They also created detailed training resources and toolkits that were distributed to over 100 community-based organizations serving food-insecure populations, ensuring that trusted community partners could help residents navigate the new system. The 500+ trained city staffers phone and in-person assistance, ensuring no one was left behind because they lacked digital fluency or English proficiency.
Dignity was the animating principle of the entire effort. Recipients received debit cards that worked exactly like their SNAP benefits had worked—at the same stores, for the same products, with the same freedom to choose. Critically, it maintained local grocery supply chains, ensuring that small grocers who depend on SNAP spending didn’t face revenue losses that could force them to waste food or, worse, close their doors.
The Enabling Factors
Crankstart’s operational model made this response possible. Rather than following traditional grantmaking timelines that can stretch across quarters, Crankstart’s board approved its $9 million commitment less than a week after the initial idea emerged. Its willingness to discard conventional approval processes and move dollars in days rather than months created the innovative moment that unlocked the city’s matching funds. This wasn’t just about having resources available—it was about having the institutional agility and board engagement to deploy them when urgency demanded it. Crankstart’s approach demonstrated that philanthropic capital can match the speed of a crisis without compromising due diligence.
Similarly, the city’s decision to maintain emergency reserve funds—and its willingness to deploy them quickly—proved equally essential. Mayor Daniel Lurie and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors had established a $400 million “Federal and State Revenue Risk Reserve” fund earlier in the year to protect against potential cuts in federal funding. This foresight meant San Francisco could act immediately when SNAP benefits froze, rather than scrambling to identify funding sources during the crisis itself. Notably, the city employed emergency contracting provisions, which allowed SFHSA to move at unprecedented speed without sacrificing accountability. Contracts that typically take months were executed in days, and the city’s mailroom worked through weekends to ensure letters reached recipients as quickly as possible.
GiveCard’s pre-positioned platform also mattered more than it might seem: prior emergency distribution efforts had revealed how difficult it can be to adapt traditional financial infrastructure to the urgency and complexity of a crisis—particularly for clients who need multilingual support and seamless access. GiveCard represented a new generation of emergency technology: purpose-built for this use case, not retrofitted. Recipients could activate benefits virtually for immediate access or receive a physical card by mail, meeting people where they were. When speed was essential, having a partner who could deploy immediately—and deliver a client experience that actually worked—made the difference between a theoretical response and groceries on tables within days.
Lessons and Looking Ahead
The San Francisco SNAP response raises critical questions that philanthropies and local governments must grapple with as they plan for an era of increasing federal safety net instability.
When should philanthropy mobilize government versus replace government? This partnership succeeded in part because it was structured as a challenge grant that catalyzed matching public investment, rather than as a replacement for government responsibility. This distinction matters. When philanthropy steps in to replace failed government services without encouraging public sector partnership, it can inadvertently enable the continued erosion of public infrastructure. When philanthropy instead uses its resources to unlock public investment, to demonstrate innovative models, or to enable rapid response while government catches up—it strengthens rather than weakens the public sector’s capacity to serve residents.
When does an emergency become permanent? The federal government shutdown that triggered this crisis was resolved 12 days after SNAP benefit disruptions began—but that timing was far from certain when the partners committed. Crankstart’s funding covered one month, and there was no fixed plan for what would happen if the shutdown dragged on. The partners predicted the impasse would break before Thanksgiving, but the politics were volatile. Crankstart was prepared to assess the situation in real time and decide whether and how to extend support if SNAP remained disrupted. As state and federal budget negotiations become more contentious and government shutdowns become more frequent, the line between “emergency response” and “permanent infrastructure replacement” becomes increasingly blurred. Local government and philanthropy cannot and should not replace the federal safety net on a permanent basis—but they should be prepared to bridge gaps during crises.
Who bears the risk when replication falls short? San Francisco’s success may continue to inspire attempts at replication. But not every jurisdiction has SFHSA’s institutional capacity, emergency contracting provisions, or Crankstart’s rapid-response philanthropy. When a county with less infrastructure, weaker data systems, and more limited philanthropic dollars attempts this model and falls short—leaving residents without timely aid—who is accountable? We must share the blueprint for success while honestly communicating the prerequisites that made it possible.
What prevents this model from enabling a managed decline of federal responsibility? When local governments and philanthropy prove they can step in during crises, do they inadvertently signal to federal policymakers that safety net funding cuts are survivable? The San Francisco model succeeded brilliantly as an emergency response—but if such emergencies become routine, at what point does demonstrating local capacity undermine the case for federal reliability? It is imperative that we deploy local innovation without providing political cover for the federal abdication that necessitated it in the first place.
A New Essential Capacity
The San Francisco SNAP response demonstrates that public-private partnerships are not an exception to be deployed only in rare emergencies, but an essential philanthropic capacity in an era of federal safety net instability. The four hallmarks framework—speed, scale, equity, and dignity—provides a replicable model that jurisdictions across the country can adapt to their own contexts.
For this model to reach its full potential, several investments are necessary. Jurisdictions should pre-position the technological infrastructure before crises hit, rather than scrambling to build systems in the midst of emergencies. Philanthropies should develop standing relationships with local governments and maintain funds for rapid response. Both sectors should invest in the kinds of equity-based program design that ensures emergency responses reach the most vulnerable community members, including those facing language barriers, housing instability, or limited digital access.
The 112,000 San Francisco residents who received grocery cards during the SNAP shutdown didn’t experience this program as a policy innovation—they experienced it as the difference between feeding their families and going hungry. In an era when federal safety net programs can no longer be counted on to provide uninterrupted support, this kind of rapid, comprehensive, dignified local response isn’t optional, it’s essential.
The question is not whether federal benefit disruptions will happen again. They will. The question is whether communities will be prepared to ensure that when the safety net fails, no one falls through.
Read more stories by Missy Narula, Trent Rhorer & Elena Fairley.