馬克?扎克伯格對新生女兒的承諾令人矚目——他在給女兒的公開信中說，和妻子普里西拉?陳將捐出99%的財產。按Facebook目前的股票價值計算，捐贈金額約為450億美元。不過，這位Facebook聯合創始人捐款的方式不太常見。他將對承諾捐出的資金有更多控制權，某些情況下也可以享受稅收優惠政策。

新聞聚合網站BuzzFeed等媒體指出，扎克伯格夫婦建立的慈善基金會是一家有限責任公司，而非基金信托架構。科技和傳媒界的一些人持批評態度，認為這樣做沖淡了扎克伯格捐贈財產的慈善色彩。但也有人指出，這種方式能讓扎克伯格做一些慈善信托辦不到的事兒。

這種靈活性有可能讓基金會更有效率，對扎克伯格家人來說也會比傳統慈善信托更有利。

蘋果創始人史蒂夫?喬布斯的遺孀勞倫娜?鮑威爾?喬布斯也曾以有限責任公司的形式創立基金會，名為Emerson Collective。公司可以做營利性投資或捐贈政治獻金，而且，與慈善信托不同的是，政治捐款情況無需公開披露。正是這一點，讓這種模式更具吸引力。

扎克伯格已經表示，該基金會的所有盈利都將用于慈善。以有限責任公司形式組建的私人基金會可能讓所有者享受稅收減免優惠，但僅限于向依據美國稅法第501(c)條注冊的非營利性組織捐贈的資金。

慈善專家勞拉?阿里拉加-安德里森和丈夫、硅谷風投人士馬克?安德里森共同經營著一家私人基金會。她在接受《紐約時報》采訪時說：“在當前環境下采用有限責任公司模式的好處在于，第一，為了達到理想效果，可以敏捷精準地作出反應。投資領域的選擇也更自由，營利性和非營利性領域的投資可以同步進行。”

此前，扎克伯格以往所做的部分善舉，曾因管理不當或模式不理想而備受批評。2010年，他們夫婦兩人曾向紐瓦克的公立教育系統捐款1億美元，希望改善當地教育水平。但批評者指出，其中很大一部分捐款都進了咨詢機構的腰包，而且最終未能改善當地的教育體系，學生的成績也未見起色，某些情況下甚至讓問題惡化了。

由此，一些科技界人士猜測，正是因為出現了類似問題，扎克伯格此次才會決定建立有限責任公司模式的基金會，而不是常見的符合稅法第501(c)條規定的慈善信托。在新的模式下，他對資金的去向和用途會有更多決定權，而不是單純地把錢交給慈善組織或非營利服務團體，失去對資金的控制。

而之所以用這種模式建立基金會，另一部分原因可能是，即便扎克伯格捐出擁有控制權的股份后，仍然能繼續控制Facebook。扎克伯格在Facebook持有約4.19億股B類股份，每一股有10票的投票權。他不僅掌握著多數有投票權的股份，還通過代理投票權等方式控制著董事會。

12月初，當扎克伯格宣布設立慈善基金會的同時，Facebook也向美國證監會提交了相關文件，其中明確顯示，扎克伯格打算長期控制公司。文件稱，扎克伯格承諾在今后三年中每年向基金會提供不超過10億美元的資金，而且他“打算在相當長的時間里保留多數投票權”。

縱觀商界，除了捐贈模式，蓋茨及其基金會和扎克伯格打算做的事最為接近。

微軟前CEO比爾?蓋茨及其夫人梅琳達建立的慈善基金會，是符合稅法第501(c)條規定的慈善信托。與之相比，扎克伯格夫婦的基金會有些不同，主要是因為扎克伯格開始做慈善的年齡比蓋茨年輕得多。蓋茨夫婦的基金會是比爾?蓋茨即將卸任時設立的，當時他42歲。扎克伯格今年才31歲，而且看起來他不太可能像蓋茨一樣放下工作專門做慈善。

蓋茨夫婦于1997年建立了比爾和梅琳達?蓋茨基金會。比爾?蓋茨的朋友，同為億萬富翁的沃倫?巴菲特隨后以合伙人的身份加入其中，承諾將440億美元股票中的85%投入基金會。

今年6月份，蓋茨基金會的總規模為413億美元，這讓扎克伯格的基金會顯得略大一些。但由于扎克伯格基金會的價值是根據Facebook股價計算的，規模上下浮動也很正常。創立以來，蓋茨基金會的捐款額已超過300億美元。

慈善捐款之風在硅谷頗為盛行。已承諾捐出部分或全部資產的科技界億萬富翁包括因特爾聯合創始人戈登?摩爾（他提出了摩爾定律）。迄今摩爾已捐出了大約30億美元資產，另有50億美元資產放在了他和妻子創建的基金會中。

其他熱衷慈善的科技界人士還有eBay創始人皮埃爾?奧米迪亞和該公司前總裁杰夫?斯科爾，兩人的捐款都超過10億美元，捐贈對象包括各種慈善組織。微軟聯合創始人保羅?艾倫也是慈善達人，捐出的資金約有15億美元。（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

Mark Zuckerberg’s pledge to his new daughter is an impressive one: Namely, that he and his wife Priscilla Chan will give away 99% of their net worth in their lifetime, as described in an open letter to their new offspring. That works out to about $45 billion, based on the current value of Facebook stock.

The Facebook co-founder is using a somewhat unusual structure in order to fulfill his charitable pledge, however—one that gives him more control over what happens to the money he is promising to give away, but still provides tax benefits.

As BuzzFeed and others have pointed out, the charitable foundation Zuckerberg and Chan have set up is a limited-liability corporation, not a charitable trust. Some in the tech and media community havecriticized this as making the announcement less obviously charitable, but others note that it will enable the Facebook co-founder to do things that charitable trusts are not allowed to do.

That flexibility could make the foundation more effective, although it could also benefit the Zuckerberg family more than a traditional trust.

Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, also has an LLC foundation, called the Emerson Collective, and the flexibility of that structure was apparently one of the things that made it appealing. Corporations can make for-profit investments and political donations—and unlike charitable trusts, they don’t have to report their political donations.

Zuckerberg has said that any money earned by the foundation will be put back into charitable efforts. Private foundations that are LLCs can generate tax savings for their owners, but only for funds that are given by the foundation to registered 501(c) non-profit entities.

“The beauty of having an LLC in today’s world is No. 1, you have the ability to act and react as nimbly as need be to create change,” Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, a philanthropy expert who also runs a private foundation with husband and Silicon Valley VC Marc Andreessen, told The New York Times. “You have the ability to invest politically, in the for-profit sector and the nonprofit sector simultaneously.”

Some of Zuckerberg’s previous charitable attempts have come under fire for being mismanaged or poorly structured: In 2010, he and Chan donated $100 million to the Newark public-school system, to try and improve education success rates.

Critics say much of the money was soaked up by consultants, and that the donation didn’t ultimately improve the school system or the outcomes for students—and in some cases may have even exacerbated the problems.

Some tech industry insiders speculate that these kinds of problems could be part of the reason why Zuckerberg decided to make his foundation an LLC rather than a typical 501(c) trust. Instead of just giving money to existing charitable entities or non-profit services, which involves a loss of control, the structure could allow him to have a greater say in where and how the money is used.

Part of the reason for the makeup of the foundation could also be a desire to maintain his grip on Facebook even as he gives away the shares that give him that control. Zuckerberg owns about 419 million Class B shares of the company, each of which has 10 votes. And not only does he have a majority of the voting shares, but he also controls the board of directors in part through the use of proxy votes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filing that Facebook made as part of the announcement of the Zuckerberg charitable foundation makes it clear that he intends to control the company for a long time. The document says that the Facebook co-founder promises not to give more than $1 billion per year to his foundation over the next three years, and says that he “intends to retain his majority voting position in [Facebook] stock for the foreseeable future.”

Apart from the structure of the entity doing the giving, however, Gates and his charitable foundation are the closest comparison to what Zuckerberg is trying to do.

Some of the differences between the Zuckerberg Chan Initiative and the charitable foundation set up by former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and his wife Melinda (which is a 501c trust) stem from the fact that the Facebook co-founder is doing his charitable donating at a much younger age. The Gates set up his foundation near the end of his time as CEO, when he was 42. Facebook’s CEO is only 31, and he shows no signs of wanting to step aside to focus on charitable donations the way that Gates did.

The Microsoft co-founder set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with his wife in 1997, and his friend and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett later joined as a partner and committed to donating 85% of his $44 billion in stock to the couple’s efforts.

In June, the Gates Foundation had a total of $41.3 billion, which makes the Zuckerberg foundation slightly larger—although obviously that value could change over time, since it is based on the market price of Facebook’s stock. The Gates Foundation has given away more than $30 billion since it was created.

Donating to charity on a large scale is a well established trend in Silicon Valley. Tech billionaires who have committed to giving away some or all of their net worth include Intel co-founder Gordon Moore (the inventor of Moore’s Law). So far he has donated about $3 billion of his assets, and still has $5 billion left in the foundation he created with his wife.

Other significant tech benefactors include eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and former eBay president Jeff Skoll, both of whom have donated more than $1 billion to a variety of charitable interests, and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who has given away about $1.5 bi