Many are looking for creative ways to help as COVID-19 has been devastating for certain businesses and people. Overflow, which began operations in late 2019, has seized the opportunity to double-down on its mission, which is to “make generosity frictionless,” Head of Technology, Kyle Woumn said.
If you attended AfroTech 2019, you might remember that Woumn was one of AfroTech’s speakers and a former Twilio software engineer.
Like all great products, Overflow was born out of a deep necessity. Vance Roush, an executive pastor at Vive Church in The Bay Area, founded Overflow in November 2019 because he saw that many people wanted to donate stock to the church but either didn’t know how to or found the process difficult. He launched Overflow and used it to raise over $1.1 million in stock for Vive.
Woumn, who also attends Vive Church, recalled his own unpleasant experiences when he tried to donate stock to other organizations, so he joined Overflow’s founding team to help them with their mission.
While the company was founded out of personal necessity, Overflow has already received attention from multiple organizations. They’ve partnered with New Story, a non-profit seeking to “pioneer solutions to end global homelessness” and RIP Medical Debt, a non-profit organization that seeks to eliminate medical debt by paying off people’s balances. Vive Church also donated $100,000 to help RIP Medical Debt eliminate medical debt in Cook County, IL.
Now, Overflow is turning their attention to empowering individual consumers to donate stock easily.
“[Most] people don’t even know that giving stock is an option, or how to do it,” Woumn said.
So far, Overflow has raised funds from Village Global, an early-stage VC fund backed by household names like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Marissa Mayer, and Magic Johnson, among others.
One of their latest partnerships is with StreetCode Academy, a community-focused startup based in East Palo Alto focused on tech education led by CEO/Lead Servant Olatunde Sobomehin.
StreetCode started teaching code to high schoolers but quickly realized the need to catch students at a younger age. Their community also includes older students like parents and grandparents looking to upskill or change careers. In fact, their members’ ages range from four-years-old to 91-years-old. Their mantra is “Hack, Hustle, Design” and they offer 15 courses to help students of all ability levels achieve their tech goals.
StreetCode has also figured out how to support their community meaningfully beyond the classroom. According to them, for as little as $500 per year, a student can be provided with a laptop and one year’s worth of internet access.
Overflow’s technology currently integrates with the websites of their non-profit clients. They hope to soon be able to offer integrations with other FinTech apps like Robinhood to make donating stock even easier for the general consumer.