No matter which way you slice it, giving stocks requires quite a bit of information.

"The stock giving process in general is a little more robust in terms of information that's needed. No matter which brokerage you [use], it's a pretty intricate process to transfer one stock from one institution to the other. And inherently there's a bunch of info collection," said Overflow product manager Franck Xian.

Historically, the process of giving stocks was incredibly tedious and time-consuming, and many organizations and churches still use this cumbersome process today:

First off, you have to work with each donor to send and process a stock donation form, and ensure proper accounting.

Next, an acknowledgement letter must be sent to verify the transaction. If anything is filled out incorrectly, the process has to be restarted and amended. That means more work for employees of nonprofits and churches, and time spent managing each gift. And for donors, it often deters them from giving in the first place.

This layered and complicated process is part of what drove our CEO Vance Roush to start Overflow. He wanted to unlock generosity, but recognized that doing so meant clearing out any unnecessary road blocks.

Our stock giving process makes it incredibly easy to give stock gifts, though it's still important to understand fully how it works.

The Process

When a church or nonprofit partners with Overflow, they typically add a button to their website that links out to Overflow's easy-to-use, secure donation platform.

Step 1: When you first open the Overflow App page, enter your email and receive a code as part of the two-factor authentication. Enter the code that was provided to your email.

Step 2: Next, select your brokerage (Charles Schwab, Fidelity, etc.) from a drop-down menu. Upon doing so, you'll be taken to a landing page that shows you all of your stock holdings, automatically ordered by gains.

Alternative Step 2: Many high net worth individuals may not want to directly link their brokerage and want to work with their financial advisor instead. We have a flow for that, which allows you to fill out the info collection fields without needing your brokerage linked. Once you go through that process, we handle everything on the back end and ensure your gift can be easily received.

Step 3: Provide your donation details, as in how many shares you want to give to the church or nonprofit, and which specific fund you're giving to within the organization.

Step 4: Finally, review your overall donation amount and sign it with a virtual signature to confirm all of the details are correct. You'll see some confetti congratulating you at the end, as we want this to feel like a celebration, not another boring transaction.

Back-End Support

If you have any questions or concerns while donating, you can click a button in the bottom corner that connects you with an Overflow representative. They can help walk you through the process and ensure that you have full confidence in giving from your brokerage account.

"We have a world class stock operations team that handles a lot of these back end operations. They'll work directly with donors in the case of large gifts," Xian said.

Reception & Results

The average stock gift on Overflow is currently $12,000, showing that this is both a potent giving avenue and one that is being used with confidence.

Ellen Paik, fund manager at the nonprofit New Story, raved about the time-saving benefits and ease of access, explaining that "Overflow has dramatically simplified our stock donation process, allowing our team to spend more time focusing on our mission! It's a notably better donor experience compared to before.”

Tarik El-Ansary, administration and finance pastor of Reality San Francisco (a church in the Bay Area) was also incredibly pleased with the simplicity and back-end support from Overflow:

"It's as good as it can get, really," he said of the partnership with Overflow. "I feel completely supported. I don't have to worry about anything. [The Overflow team] is available. There's high communication around a lot of different things," he said.