Overflow

What Overflow is

Overflow is a web-based church and nonprofit giving platform whose distinguishing capability is non-cash assets. Donors can give appreciated stock - any publicly-traded U.S. security, plus ETFs and mutual funds - cryptocurrency from a list of US-compliant coins maintained by The Giving Block, or initiate a donor-advised fund grant, through a self-serve flow rather than paperwork. Ordinary giving sits alongside: card, ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay, recurring gifts.

Around that sit RoundUps for automated giving from rounded-up purchases, Overflow Tap NFC hardware for tap-to-give and for registration, prayer requests, check-in and texting, auto-generated IRS-compliant giving statements, an AI dashboard with metrics and revenue forecasting, and integrations with Planning Center, Rock RMS, Push Pay, Salesforce, Boomerang, Virtuous and Zapier. The company reports SOC 2 Type 2 compliance and over 1,000 organisations served.

Why churches with wealthy members choose Overflow

Every giving platform processes cards and bank drafts competently, and on that ground Overflow is unremarkable: 2.5% + $0.30 is mid-market and the subscription makes it dearer than platforms charging nothing monthly. The reason to choose it is the asset class the others do not handle. A member with $50,000 of stock bought at $10,000 who sells and donates the proceeds pays capital-gains tax on $40,000 of appreciation before the church sees a penny. Transferred directly, the whole $50,000 arrives and the tax event never happens.

What Overflow sells, then, is the removal of an excuse. Previously a church wanting stock gifts asked members to arrange a brokerage transfer themselves, chase a form, and - in the case that started this company - find a fax machine. Most people abandon that. Overflow turns it into a flow that completes in minutes, puts crypto and DAF grants on the same rails, and tracks each gift through seven statuses so the finance office knows where the money is. Churches running capital campaigns are the clearest fit, because that is when the largest gifts a congregation will ever make are on the table.

Stock, crypto and DAF: the whole reason to be here

Overflow accepts any publicly-traded stock on U.S. exchanges plus ETFs and mutual funds, connecting to donors' brokerage accounts through Yodlee rather than storing login credentials. Crypto covers coins "compliant and accepted within the United States," the list maintained by The Giving Block; unsupported coins may be processed off-platform case by case, meaning manually. DAF grants can be initiated too. All of it is priced under one line - "Non-Cash Donations: 3% or lower per transaction" - and lands in the same dashboard as card and ACH gifts, with auto-generated IRS-compliant statements at the other end.

This earns a subscription because non-cash giving is not a smaller version of cash giving; it is a different pool of money. A household's current account and its brokerage account are practically and psychologically separate, and the second is usually far larger. The caveats are real and published: "brokerage-imposed restrictions on the transfer" may apply to certain ETFs and mutual funds depending on fund type and gift value, retirement account donations are "subject to early withdrawal penalties (before age 59.5)," and "some employer retirement plans restrict distributions." Tell donors about Yodlee in advance rather than letting them meet a third-party aggregator mid-flow.

The seven-status pipeline, and where the days actually go

A stock gift moves through seven published statuses: Initiated, In Process, Received for Liquidation, Liquidation Complete, Payout Sent, Contribution Received, Acknowledgment Letter Sent. It becomes In Process when the instruction reaches the donor's brokerage, which "usually happens on the same or next business day." What follows depends on your arrangement. With Liquidation Partners, shares liquidate within one business day of receipt, the sale settles in one to two more, and the wire takes "up to 5 business days to process depending on your bank." With Brokerage Partners, where shares land in the church's own account, no timeline is published at all.

Two consequences. Worst case on the published path is roughly a week and a half from button-press to cash, most of it outside Overflow's control - fine for a capital campaign, poor for a cashflow emergency. Second, and more awkward: only gifts marked "Contribution Received" appear on donor tax statements, "as only confirmed donations are included." A gift stalled earlier is invisible on the donor's statement, so somebody must reconcile the pipeline and chase confirmations before January. Defensible - you should not receipt a gift you cannot confirm - but work the platform creates rather than removes.

Everyday giving, and the two settlement mechanics that will annoy your bookkeeper

Ordinary giving covers card, ACH, Apple Pay and Google Pay, recurring gifts, RoundUps, and Overflow Tap for tap-to-give in the room, marketed with "ExpressGive" as "The fastest giving flow in the industry." Deposits work three ways. ACH is batched: "Typically, ACH deposits will group together donations made within a period of 3 to 5 business days," with banks possibly adding one to two more, arriving as "FISERV PMNT SVCS PAYOUT." Card gifts group within 24 hours, arrive as "MERCHANT BANKCD DEPOSIT," and pay out "the full value of the gift" - then "Within the first 10 days of the following month, Fiserv will withdraw the fees incurred in one lump sum." Wallet gifts group within 24 hours too but appear as "Overflow Deposit" and arrive net.

Read that again as whoever does your monthly reconciliation. Card income arrives gross with a fee debit landing up to six weeks after some of the gifts that produced it. Wallet income arrives net, so no deposit matches the gift. ACH arrives in three-to-five-day clumps under a processor's name. Three methods, three deposit shapes, three statement descriptions, one fee debit to allocate across a month of transactions. A church with a finance director absorbs this. A church whose treasurer is a volunteer with a spreadsheet and two hours on a Tuesday evening will not, and that is fair reason to prefer a platform that deposits net throughout.

Pricing

Where Overflow falls behind

No published price, in a category where everyone else manages one. /pricing 404s, the schedule is split across two pages, the Amex rate lives in a help article, and the subscription is a floor that scales. The published figures are at least clear - but this is the hardest platform here to evaluate without a salesperson, which for a board comparing options on one page is a real cost.

Reconciliation is the weakest part of the build. Card gifts deposit gross with fees clawed back by Fiserv in one lump sum within the first ten days of the following month; wallet gifts deposit net; ACH arrives in three-to-five-business-day batches under a processor's name. A competent finance function copes. A volunteer treasurer may not, and no marketing page warns them.

Stock is slow, and the slow parts are not Overflow's fault but are still your problem: a business day to liquidate, one to two to settle, up to five for the wire "depending on your bank," with the clock starting only when the donor's brokerage releases the shares. No crypto or DAF settlement timing is published at all. Then the statement gap - only gifts at "Contribution Received" reach donor tax statements.

Asset support has more edges than the marketing suggests. "Any publicly-traded stock" is qualified by "brokerage-imposed restrictions on the transfer" for some ETFs and mutual funds depending on fund type and gift value. Crypto covers US-compliant coins only, anything else handled off-platform case by case - manual work, not a feature. Retirement gifts carry early-withdrawal penalties before 59.5, some employer plans restrict distributions, and brokerage linking runs through Yodlee.

Venture funding cuts both ways, and nothing is independently verified. Overflow has raised over $30m - pre-seed April 2020 led by Village Global and On Deck, seed September 2020 led by Uncork Capital and Craft Ventures, Series A April 2021 led by R7 and Salesforce Ventures, Series B October 2023 led by Wesleyan Investment Foundation. That buys engineering, SOC 2 Type 2 compliance and integrations a bootstrapped rival cannot match; it also means a company sitting between your church and its largest gifts carries investor expectations about growth, pricing and exit that a self-funded vendor does not. A different risk profile, not an allegation. Meanwhile the published metrics - a "12% average annual giving increase after migration," Tap at "42x higher engagement vs. QR codes" - are vendor claims with no substantiation, and with no consumer app there is no user rating to check them against.

Overflow vs. Anedot vs. SecureGive

Start with the shape of the bill. Overflow charges $1,200 a year and up plus 2.5% + $0.30 on cards and 0.5% + $0.20 on ACH. Anedot charges nothing monthly - "$0/month, no contracts, and no hidden fees" - and recovers it per transaction at 3.3% + 30c on cards and 0.3% + 30c on ACH for 501(c)(3) organisations. SecureGive sits at $299 a month plus 2.5% + 30c. Small church, modest card volume: Anedot's zero platform fee wins. Large church, heavy card volume: a subscription plus a lower percentage wins.

Then the asset question, where Overflow stops being comparable. Anedot publishes no stock or DAF rate at all - Bitcoin at 1.0% is its only priced non-cash asset - so appreciated-share gifts there are manual or absent. SecureGive does support appreciated assets and is the closer comparison. Overflow goes furthest: any publicly-traded U.S. stock plus ETFs and mutual funds, US-compliant crypto, DAF grant initiation, and a seven-status pipeline behind it at "3% or lower." If non-cash giving is why you are shopping, the subscription is simply the entry fee.

Finally structure and risk. Anedot is its own payment processor - "We are both an online giving platform and payment processor" - which removes a third party from the chain. Overflow's cash processing runs through Fiserv, visible down to the "FISERV PMNT SVCS PAYOUT" line on your statement. Overflow is venture-backed with over $30m raised; Anedot is founder-led since 2010 with ownership undisclosed. Neither publishes cancellation terms properly, though Anedot at least publishes "no contracts." Both are web platforms with no consumer mobile app - the right design for both, and why neither has a user rating to consult.

Alternatives to Overflow

Anedot★ 4.0The structural opposite: $0/month, no contracts, and its own payment processor rather than a reseller. Cheaper for smaller churches, but publishes no stock or DAF rate - Bitcoin at 1.0% is its only non-cash asset.→SecureGive★ 4.2The nearest competitor on appreciated assets, on a $299/mo plus 2.5% + 30c model. That subscription is heavier than Overflow's annual fee, so it needs volume to justify itself.→Continue To Give★ 3.6A cheaper card rate on its Gold plan at roughly 2.5% + $0.25, aimed at smaller ministries. Worth a look if cash and card giving is genuinely all you need.→Zeffy★ 4.0Runs on Stripe rather than owning its processing, and takes no platform fee from the organisation. The lowest-rated option here - read the fee-recovery model closely first.→

More Church Giving & Donation Platforms

SecureGive★ 4.2Founded in 2004 by a pastor who put the first giving kiosk in an American church, and still selling to churches on a published rate card rather than a sales call - with a transaction cap on both priced tiers that decides whether it fits you.→Zeffy★ 4.0The only platform in this category that charges a church nothing whatsoever - no monthly fee, no transaction fee, no card fee - and pays for itself by asking your donors for a tip instead, which makes this a pastoral decision rather than a financial one.→Anedot★ 4.0The only platform here that processes its own payments rather than reselling somebody else's - no monthly fee, no contract, and a card rate that quietly pays for both.→Continue To Give★ 3.6A modular all-in-one for small churches and missionaries - seven giving methods, a member database, real fund accounting - built by a missionary who could not afford the alternatives, and undermined by three contradictory published fee schedules.→Subsplash★ 5.0The all-in-one church platform megachurches keep choosing - fully custom-branded apps across phone, web, and TV that make a 5,000-member ministry feel like an Apple keynote.→Spoken Gospel★ 5.0A reading plan that gives you a 3-minute spoken-word video on every chapter of the Bible - the rare Bible companion that actually changes how the page reads.→