The article considers the models of management of communal, transportation and social infrastructure facilities to meet socially useful purposes. Based on the results of analyzing experience of foreign countries, the author shows that the trust and its functional analogues are used for the management of social purpose objects. The author considers the approaches of common law countries and continental law countries (mainly Germany). For the management of social purpose objects in Germany legal and non-legal foundations and institutions are used. However, the use of the long-known trust structure does not give creditors the right to foreclose on the debts of the trust on social objects. The article attempts to show the possibility of using the Russian institute of trust management for the management of social objects instead of the institutes of the right of operational management and the right of economic management. However, this model of management of socially useful property cannot be used in the presence of an administrative legal relationship between a public-law entity and a state body. To use the model of trust management the subjects must be property separate from each other. Otherwise, the construction of a contractual legal relationship loses its significance. Russian law cannot take the category of “fiduciary property” or trust due to the fact that Russian law has been based on the unitary concept of property rights for several centuries. The concealment of the identity of the trust’s founder, which is characteristic of a trust, does not make sense when managing social objects. We are talking only about economic management of state property. The use of a trust management agreement for the management of social objects will allow solving the problem of participation of non-owner legal entities in the Russian turnover. However, even if such a model of state property management is chosen, there is still a need for the state to be liable for debts associated with managing social facilities. The choice of the model of state property management cannot solve the problem of economic unprofitability of achieving socially useful goals.