Overflow Raises $10M Series A Round to Bring Philanthropy into the Future

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5 Minute Read
Posted by Vance Roush on October 10, 2021

Tags: Company

Whether you work for a large or small nonprofit, the question “How do we bring in more funding?” is always on your mind. You’ve already asked existing donors for more support, raised membership fees, and exhausting events, but no matter how much you raise, the need keeps growing.

The funds raised through our Series A will be used to help Overflow scale across talent acquisition, product innovation, and more, all towards Overflow’s mission of making generosity frictionless.

"Stock donations are the most lucrative and tax efficient way to give, yet it’s the most underdeveloped donation channel. That is why we are beyond excited about Overflow; Vance is exactly the kind of rare founder that can lead the industry."

— Tyler Engh, Founder and General Partner, R7

"We love Overflow’s mission, and are excited about their commitment to democratizing access to equity as a way to do good. Overflow makes it easy for companies to empower their employees to donate to the causes they believe in—before they hit the proverbial jackpot."

— Jeff Clavier, Founder and Managing Partner, Uncork Capital

Origins

Words from our Founder, Vance Roush:

When sharing our story, it’s often prompted by “Vance, how did you come up with the idea for Overflow?” I love this question because it allows me the opportunity to share an ancient proverb found in the Bible (yes, I’m a Pastor— but don’t hold that against me!).

The proverb goes like this:

A simple, yet powerful principle, that launched a whole company.

10 years ago I married the love of my life, Kim Roush. A key thing we agreed on was that we wanted to live a generous life. We aimed to always fight for the bill, intentionally give to our church and community, and live a lifestyle that hopefully inspired others to give. As we put this principle into practice over this past decade, we have seen our life enlarged in ways that can’t be fully explained. Proverb 11:24 captures it so well.

In addition to this, we have had the distinct privilege to be part of the founding team at VIVE Church. We started with 7 people in a living room, and now have 4,000 active members globally. In addition to choosing a principled life of generosity, we saw hundreds of others under their own conviction choosing to do the same, allowing us to witness their lives expand in incredible ways. We don’t give to get something in return, but because when we give, we connect ourselves to something beyond ourselves.

From Principle To Product

In Summer of 2019, I shared with my wife, family and Pastors that I wanted to productize this principle. What if we created technology that facilitated and inspired the world to give? What if we invested into this at the levels of Google and Facebook’s Ad Network or Amazon’s Delivery System? What if giving to your church, university, or causes you care about felt less like a transaction and more like a celebration? What if giving was less like dropping a few coins in a bucket and more like a strategic investment portfolio allocation?

We would unlock giving at unprecedented levels.

A bunch of ‘What ifs’ turned into incorporating Overflow and solidifying our vision of building the infrastructure to make generosity frictionless across every major asset class. And we’re starting with stock. The most under-utilized, but highest leverage fundraising channel, for donors and nonprofits!

What Is Overflow Today?

At Overflow, we believe that people are intrinsically drawn to give, but they don’t always have access to the best tools to do so. Overflow empowers nonprofits and donors alike by creating products that make giving frictionless, elevated, and fun. We are focusing on facilitating stock donations because it is the most underutilized fundraising channel with the highest leverage potential.

Donors are known to be much more generous with stock than with cash. The average stock donation through Overflow is $6,031, which is 47x larger than the average cash donation nationwide.

Currently, Overflow makes it possible for people to seamlessly donate stocks directly to their favorite nonprofits and causes they care about. Most nonprofits deal exclusively with cash donations, yet studies show that only 10% of the average donor’s net worth is kept in cash. This fundamental misalignment is the biggest missed opportunity in the nonprofit fundraising space today—and Overflow is fixing that.

Overflow provides nonprofit organizations with products and services to streamline the donation process. With Overflow, nonprofit organizations receive “The Donor Experience” that is beautifully designed and inspires big giving, a Nonprofit Dashboard to streamline back-office tasks such as reconciliation and executing charitable acknowledgment letters, and an excellent service to roll out this fundraising channel to their donor base in a sophisticated and intelligent way.

Since soft launching in July 2020, Overflow has already attracted 125+ of the top nonprofits & churches in the world to our platform including Meals on Wheels, the Golden State Warriors Foundation, Tipping Point Community, New Story, Baby2Baby, Elevation Church, and Banfield Foundation.

Our Five Year Vision

We foresee that in five years Overflow will allow you to donate any asset class, to any organization, anywhere, at any time. Today, we’re focused on making it possible to donate publicly-traded stocks, but have our eyes on other appreciated securities such as ones being traded on platforms like Robinhood, Coinbase, Rally Rd, Otis, Masterworks and Vinovest— making it possible to give any appreciated gains!

Not only does stock donation maximize the donor’s impact, but it optimizes taxes because nonprofits are not subject to capital gains tax and are able to realize the full market value of the donation. This also means the donor is able to realize the full market value of their donation as a charitable tax deduction. Thereby creating a truly win-win situation for both the nonprofit and donor.

Today, $450B+ is donated to nonprofits to fund the work they do to tackle our world’s most pressing issues. What if we doubled that by unlocking donations from wealth, not just cash on hand? What if collectively we gave $1T+? That wouldn’t just fully fund mission critical initiatives, but that would change us. Because giving is intrinsically valuable. And I believe the ancient proverb is true… the world of the generous gets larger, exponentially.

We'll continue to build for this space until every human on the planet experiences the life of the generous!

 

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