Sheryl Sandberg.

Facebooks Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg quietly gave a total of $127 million to two of her charitable vehicles over the course of 2019. For someone whose net worth Forbes pegs at $1.6 billion, parting with 8% of her fortune in one year seems generous. But heres the thing: We dont know the end purpose of most of those funds.

My giving this year helps support and empower women across the globe through LeanIn.Org, helps people experiencing loss build resilience through OptionB.Org, and provides hard working college students with financial support and mentorship through the Dave Goldberg Scholars Program, which honors the legacy of my husband, said Sandberg in a statement to Forbes.

But based on an analysis of public documents, it looks like the majority of her charitable giving since 2015$230 million worth of donated Facebook shareshas gone to donor-advised funds, a controversial giving vehicle that is the equivalent of giving to a black box. Whats more: Very little of her giving to date has actually ended up in LeanIn and OptionB.

LeanIn focuses on female empowerment, which grew out of Sandbergs 2013 book Lean In: Women, Work and The Will To Lead. LeanIn has helped create 45,000 LeanIn Circles in 172 countries around the world, which facilitate women coming together to exchange ideas and encourage one another. Sandberg started OptionB in 2017 after her second book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, in the wake of the unexpected death of her husband, Dave Goldberg, at age 47 in 2015. OptionB, which focuses on helping people build resilience, also hosts support groups and offers educational information and research for people dealing with personal hardships and loss.

From 2013 through 2017, LeanIn and OptionB received $12 million from Sandberg via The Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg Family Foundation. This family foundation is an operating foundation, meaning it exists only to fund the operations of LeanIn and OptionB. It does not donate to outside charities.

According to the foundations 2017 tax filings, the most recent year available, $3.3 million went to LeanIn and $3.5 million to OptionB. The foundation also spent another $1.2 million on communications and over $300,000 in consulting fees to Megan Rooney, a former speechwriter to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

It seems like a huge portion of the proceeds are used for essentially public relations, says Alan Cantor, a consultant to nonprofits. I guess I would question whether this whole thing is largely an exercise in positioning [Sheryl].

Beth Parker, chief communications officer for Sandbergs foundation, says that communications is a large part of LeanIns work because its main focus is to educate. Lean In was founded to change attitudes about gender bias, Parker explains. We arent a direct support organization like other nonprofits. We put a heavy emphasis on communication because educating others is central to our mission.

Still, that leaves hundreds of millions of Sandbergs charitable dollars that have gone unaccounted for. According to documents filed with the Securities Exchange Commission, Sandberg has given $230 million worth of Facebook shares to donor-advised funds since 2015. A spokesperson states Sandberg has given more than that in her lifetime and the figure is substantially higher, but Forbes was unable to independently verify. With only $12 million transferred to LeanIn and OptionB, however, that leaves at least another $218 million that we might never learn the details about. This lack of transparency about where the giving ends ups is one of the biggest critiques of donor-advised funds, also called DAFs.

The money can just sit there or it can go to controversial causes that [Sheryl] might not want her name associated with, says Cantor.

DAFs have also come under fire due to their very flexible requirements. There is no rule for when and how much donors have to give away assets in a DAF. But it still allows benefactors to claim a large tax break for what counts as a gift to a charitable foundation. Sandberg has transferred Facebook shares to a DAF every November in four out of the past five years.

Can you imagine if all this money went to organizations that actually did the work? poses Cantor.The people who run nonprofits, like the people who actually feed children, house families, conduct research, put on community theater they hate donor-advised funds. Because now, major donors are jumping into DAFs instead of giving them $10,000 or $100,000 a year.

Its possible that Sandberg is regularly giving money away from her DAFs but its equally possible that she is not. Parker, of Sandbergs foundation, declined to share how much the Facebook executive distributes to nonprofits from her DAF each year. And without more accountability and reporting around these kinds of charitable vehicles, the public will never know how much she gave and where shes given to.

That might change soon for the billionaire executive. In late 2018, Sandberg began diversifying her giving strategy when she announced the creation of the Sandberg Goldberg Charitable Support Fund. It is a grant-making foundationmeaning it is required to file financial information to the government and give away 5% of its assets to charities every year. Its been a little over a year since Sandberg announced the creation of this foundation, and it still doesnt have a website. Further, tax filings detailing the grants by the foundation likely wont be available until 2021.

According to Parker, the new foundation will further support Sheryls philanthropic mission. Her philanthropy has centered around causes related to womens issues/gender equality, poverty alleviation, hunger relief, and education. Sandberg donated $87 million in cash and securities in 2019 to this new foundation a gift which was only revealed after Forbes inquired about another gift of Sandbergs this year found in public filings: a $41 million transfer in Facebook shares to a DAF.

Donations outside of Sandbergs gifts to LeanIn and OptionB have been reported this year as well, including a $1 million gift to Planned Parenthood to support its advocacy work and a $2.5 million pledge to the Anti-Defamation League in October to combat hate and bias in the United States and in Europe.

Only time will tell where the money will ultimately go. But the creation of a new foundation that doesnt exist only to fund her two nonprofits, but other charities as well, will hopefully be a new chapter of giving for Sandberg.

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Where Has Facebook Billionaire Sheryl Sandbergs $320 Million In Philanthropic Giving Gone To? - Forbes