Why we exist

By Soraya Depowski, Founder and CEO of Sharely

I started Sharely because giving felt broken.

I’d donate to a cause I cared about, type my card details into another website, and get a polite receipt later. No sense of what changed, and no link to where most of my money actually sits. My investing app is where I manage my money. My giving lived somewhere else.

Donating from a portfolio is the smarter path. When you give appreciated stock or gains, the nonprofit keeps what capital gains tax would have taken and you can take a deduction. That’s tax optimization, and it really should be readily available to everyone, not just people with donor-advised funds or private bankers.

Sharely is a small layer that puts giving in the same place you invest.

Inside the brokerage app. You pick shares or gains, tap donate, and get a clean receipt and a clear picture of impact. No new account or detours.

This fixes a simple product gap. People expect one app to feel complete: savings, trading, advice, transfers, retirement, even crypto. Why should giving be the one thing that makes you leave the app? Vlad Tenev says the $120 trillion wealth transfer will be won by platforms that feel like a family office in your pocket. Younger investors want to give online and see outcomes. With up to $18 trillion set to flow to charity by 2048, where will that decision live? It (= ‘Donate’) should live right beside ‘Trade’ and ‘Transfer’.

The moment is right. Robinhood reported about $50 billion in net deposits last year and says the first two quarters of this year were two of the top three ever, on track to exceed last year. If even a sliver of gains flowed to impactful causes inside the app, the scale would be real.

What matters most to us is the impact you can see. Right now we give and then guess. With Sharely you see what changed, not just what you spent. You open your app and it tells a simple story: “You’re one of the top 10% climate investors on this platform.” or “Your donations funded 3 clean water projects and 120 school meals.” In the same way you know how much your investments earned, you know how much impact your giving made.

We don’t replace advisors and we don’t custody assets. We coordinate between brokers, verified nonprofits, and users, so dollars that were hard to unlock start doing visible work.