Employee Equity
Companies can enable employees to give their company equity to charity easily.
Overview
Companies can easily enable their employees to give their company equity to charity through Charityvest.
Charityvest provides each employee with their own donor-advised fund (DAF), then employees can easily donate their company equity into their DAF, enjoying the advanced tax benefits of giving appreciated assets versus cash.
Charityvest makes it simple. There's no faxing forms or talking to lawyers. We automate as much as we can and guide employees through any parts we can't.
We can roll up the metrics to your social impact or executive leadership to show the effects across the company.
Groups like Pledge 1% and companies like Twilio are leading the way encouraging companies and their employees to give equity.
Why You Should Enable Employees to Give Equity
💰 It's extremely tax-advantaged. Donating assets versus cash is a double-whammy. By donating appreciated assets, you avoid paying any capital gains tax on the assets' gains, and you also get to take an income tax deduction on the market value of the asset at the time of donation.
🙁 It can prevent employees from experiencing major tax bills they may have trouble paying. For example, restricted stock units (RSUs) require employees to pay ordinary income tax in the year the stock is actually issued. This can oftentimes put employees in a financially precarious position or cause them to forfeit their stock issuance. Donating RSUs can provide a delightful economic alternative to prevent any tax from occurring.
🚀 It can super-charge your company giving program impact. Equity giving amounts are normally large, and multi-year in the donors' minds, especially from company founders and executives. This can really boost a company's community giving numbers and inspire everyone.
How it Works
A company admin creates a company Charityvest for Workplaces program and invites employees to join Charityvest (this can occur via email or passive link, like on your company intranet).
Employees create a Charityvest account.
Employees initiate equity donations.
If your company is publicly traded and the equity is held in a brokerage, the employee can initiate a stock contribution easily within the Charityvest app. We take care of the details with the donor and their broker.
If the company uses a platform like Shareworks or is private, a donor will notify the Charityvest team through our support channel or support@charityvest.org that they would like to donate equity. We will guide them step-by-step through the actions they need to take and make them as simple as possible.
Once the equity is donated to Charityvest, our team will liquidate the position as soon as practical and will credit the liquidated amount to the employee's Charityvest DAF.
Employees can invest their balance in Charityvest, and grow the balance tax-free.
Employees can send grants to any charity, at any time.
(Optional) Total giving metrics are rolled up across employees into a dashboard and monthly email summary. Matching programs can also be combined with an equity program seamlessly.
Companies That Are a Good Fit for Employee Equity Giving
Publicly-traded companies with any kind of stock purchase plan or stock compensation programs.
Private companies expecting a significant liquidity event (e.g., IPO) in the next 0-12 months where employees have equity awards.
Private companies wanting to enable founders and executives to donate a significant amount of their equity.
Program Options
Refer employees to Charityvest for them to donate equity (free for public companies // private companies only pay for legal setup costs). You can refer employees to create their free DAF with Charityvest and we'll help them donate their company equity. Please give us a heads up that you're going to refer employees to us. We'd love to help you make it a great experience.
Create a giving program with Charityvest and track metrics over time ($99-$449/month). Option to seamlessly add matching. We can help you integrate equity giving into your broader CSR program. Please reach out to us, and we'll help.
Can Charityvest be integrated with an Existing Giving Platform?
Most likely. We'd love to explore how equity giving might complement what you're already doing.
Please reach out to us to discuss your company's particular situation.
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