SAN FRANCISCO — The billionaire hacker who built Facebook into the world's most popular social network and into one of its most powerful companies is not taking a conventional approach to philanthropy.
Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan pledged this week to give away 99% of their Facebook shares, currently valued at $45 billion, to tackle some of the world's most complex problems over the couple's lifetime.
The pledge is one of the largest philanthropic gifts in history, but that does not mean the funds are earmarked for traditional philanthropic institutions.
The Zuckerberg Chan initiative is set up as a limited liability company or LLC, owned and controlled by Zuckerberg, not as a charitable trust. The structure gives the couple great latitude in the investments they make, from funding non-profit organizations to making private investments to taking public stands on public policy issues.
Doug White, who teaches philanthropy at Columbia University and advises philanthropists, says the hybrid approach is gaining momentum in philanthropy. The LLC structure Zuckerberg and Chan have chosen "can be used very effectively to combine the non-profit mind-set with the for-profit mind-set."
"Is there a movement to solving more intractable problems to include the non-profit world and the for-profit world as well as government? The answer is yes, and I am glad it's yes," White said. "A symbiotic relationship can be created, and we are seeing a lot of that from younger philanthropists."
The couple has not yet detailed how the money will be spent. The initiative's investments were broadly defined as "philanthropic, public advocacy, and other activities for the public good," in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Facebook said its chief executive's LLC would pursue its mission by "funding non-profit organizations, making private investments and participating in policy debates, in each case with the goal of generating positive impact in areas of great need."
"Any profits from investments in companies will be used to fund additional work to advance the mission," the company said.
That raises raises red flags for some who worry Zuckerberg could use the money to fund his or his company’s political agenda.
Zuckerberg's interests span the globe and often intersect with Facebook's. His immigration advocacy group Fwd.us, for instance, is about to relaunch its push to overhaul immigration laws for the 2016 election cycle after spending tens of millions on a failed effort two years ago.
Fwd.us is taking aim at the anti-immigration reform views championed by Donald Trump and other GOP presidential candidates in a bid to change immigration laws in early 2017 in ways that would also benefit Facebook and other tech companies. That kind of big-money advocacy comes amid growing national debate over the growing power of wealth to sway public policy.
In light of the extraordinary wealth and power at stake, Anil Dash, CEO of ThinkUp, says it's important to cast a critical eye on Zuckerberg's philanthropic efforts "to ensure that this gift of $45 billion dollars is put to good use."
Zuckerberg and Chan made the philanthropic pledge Tuesday at the same time they announced their daughter's birth. The initiative, which they said would focus initially on "personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities," will build on the couple's charitable work that has already dispersed $1.6 billion to various causes.
Zuckerberg belongs to a new generation of Silicon Valley tycoons who are eager to spread their wealth and influence while they are still young. Three of the top givers last year in the United States hailed from the tech world, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
These fiercely independent philanthropists aim to solve complex problems by using technology, data and investments in for-profit ventures as well as non-profit organizations.
In this respect, Zuckerberg and Chan are no exception. They believe in the power of technology to change the world for the better, pointing at the rise of personalized learning technology and increased Internet access as promising ways to improve people's lives. But they also concede technology cannot solve all problems, citing the nonprofit Primary School the couple founded this fall.
Zuckerberg and Chan say they will rely on guidance from experts and won't focus on quick fixes to intractable problems.
"The greatest challenges require very long time horizons and cannot be solved by short-term thinking," they wrote in a letter to their daughter posted on Facebook on Tuesday.
Big money and good intentions aren't always enough, even for Silicon Valley wunderkinds whose day jobs are running the world's mega corporations. At least one of Zuckerberg's biggest, riskiest bets has not paid off. In 2010, Zuckerberg donated $100 million to improve failing public schools in Newark, which became $200 million with matching donations. Nearly all of the money has been spent, and debate over the impact has raged.
Zuckerberg points out that graduation rates had risen but concedes he learned a lot from the experience. "No effort like this is ever going to be without challenges, mistakes and honest differences among people with good intentions," he wrote in a Facebook post last month.
"What Mark Zuckerberg is doing, he's flying into the teeth of what I would call hard philanthropy, and I give him a billion points of credit for that," White said. "Because, let's be frank, he did not have the best experience with his Newark gift."
That experience will inform Zuckerberg's philanthropy going forward, White believes.
"I am sure he's going to have to look at this multidimensionally and bring in people who are experts not only in philanthropy, but also other stakeholders who are affected and give them a part of the say as well," he said.
Follow USA TODAY senior technology writer Jessica Guynn @jguynn
