14 DAY TRIAL // For more than two decades, Steve Jobs’ family has been giving away money, anonymously. Yet, the late Steve Jobs has been often criticized for not giving money away to charity.
A profile of Laurene Powell Jobs (Steve Jobs widow) over at the NY Times reveals that the Jobs family never cared much for philantropic publicity and, in fact, preferred to create an organization run in such a way that it didn’t need to report its donations.
“We’re really careful about amplifying the great work of others in every way that we can, and we don’t like attaching our names to things,” Ms. Powell Jobs said.
Emerson Collective, the LLC in question, can make grants, for-profit investments and political donations, all while being exempted from having to publicly report its donations.
Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, who teaches philanthropy at Stanford, said this practice has become more and more common in recent times.
“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, and you have the ability to invest politically, in the for-profit sector and the nonprofit sector simultaneously,” she said.
Ms. Powell Jobs added, “doing things anonymously and being nimble and flexible and responsive are all things we value on our team.”