The Guardian view on the Chan-Zuckerberg foundation: a truly generous gesture | Editorial

Good intentions can't guarantee good results as the new breed of venture philanthropists are learning. But three cheers for generosity

Who could quibble with the decision by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan to celebrate the birth of their daughter by donating almost all of their private fortune - $45bn - to a new philanthropic foundation? Quite a lot of people, it turns out, are not quite dazzled by what, in the global league of success, amounts to voluntary impoverishment. There is some justice to the criticism: the ambition and scale of contemporary philanthropy can raise some very particular problems of transparency, accountability and unintended consequences.

Mark Zuckerberg - who has already given away more than $1bn - knows that from experience. Five years ago, he pledged $100m to the StartUp:Education foundation. It was in support of a cross-party alliance to transform Newark's dire public schools. After five tumultuous years, the project is still going, but it is smaller in its purpose and wider in its focus. The possibilities of a top-down revolution were more or less defeated by Newark's disfiguring poverty. Now it embraces social workers, physical and mental health and even the quality of school meals. It was an object lesson in the limitations of philanthropy. Doing good is not the same as doing business.

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