Florida Law Review Volume 70 Issue 5 Article 1 October 2019 Disruptive Philanthropy: Chan-Zuckerberg, the Limited Liability Company, and the Millionaire Next Door Dana Brakman Reiser Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr Part of the Business Organizations Law Commons Recommended Citation Dana Brakman Reiser, Disruptive Philanthropy: Chan-Zuckerberg, the Limited Liability Company, and the Millionaire Next Door, 70 Fla. L. Rev. 921 (2019). Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol70/iss5/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UF Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Florida Law Review by an authorized editor of UF Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Reiser: Disruptive Philanthropy: Chan-Zuckerberg, the Limited Liability C DISRUPTIVE PHILANTHROPY: CHAN-ZUCKERBERG, THE LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, AND THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR Dana Brakman Reiser* Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, have pledged to give 99% of their net worth to—in their words— “advance[e] human potential and promot[e] equal opportunity.” To make good on this promise, however, they did not set up a traditional nonprofit, tax-exempt organization. Instead, they founded the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, a limited liability company (LLC). The bulk of this Article provides the definitive explanation for this seemingly bizarre choice. Importantly, the philanthropy LLC structure offers donors the flexibility to bolster charitable grantmaking with impact investment and political advocacy, free of the restrictions, penalties, and transparency requirements applied to tax-exempt vehicles. The LLC form also provides donors complete control over the organizations they found, including an ability to reclaim donated assets that is absolutely prohibited in traditional forms.