According to the Associated Press, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, pediatrician, have decided to donate a whopping $120 million to the San Francisco Bay Area’s public school system.
In an interview at Facebook’s California headquarters, in Menlo Park, Chan discussed their decision, stating, “Education is incredibly expensive and this is a drop in the bucket. What we are trying to do is catalyze change by exploring and promoting the development of new interventions and new models.”
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Zuckerberg, 30, and Chan, 29, met while attending Harvard and then married on May 19, 2012. Significantly, this was the day after Facebook’s stock had started to trade publicly. Together, the two joined Giving Pledge in 2010, which was led by Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, and Berkshire Hathaway, CEO of Warren Buffett.
Their generous donation will span over five years, it is the largest amount that they have donated since the $1.1 billion stock they endowed in 2013 to the nonprofit Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The couple broke the 2013 charitable gift record with this hefty donation on top of the other $500 million which they had given to Silicon Valley foundation back in 2012.
Zuckerberg and Chan’s philanthropic work is focused on the aid of education, children, and health. The couple’s foundation is called “Start-up: Education”. Zuckerberg also participates in a political group formed of tech leaders that works to change immigration policy.
The allocations of their donation are determined by the urgency of the school’s issues which they have prioritized based on their discussions with school administrations and local leaders. The first portion of their donation, $5 million, will go to Ravenswood and Redwood City, districts in San Francisco.
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In order to gain first-hand experience with this type of charitable work, Chan has taught science classes to 4th and 5th graders at a local private school. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg runs an after-school entrepreneurship course.
The couple’s decision to donate was clarified as Zuckerberg stated, “I’m really focused on connecting the world. That’s my main thing, and you’re primarily focused on children. And we’re able to do some of this work together, which is neat.”
Zuckerberg owns the Facebook stock which is worth over $27 billion. Nevertheless, Zuckerberg has chosen to have an annual salary of a mere $1.
Zuckerberg and Chan, a pediatrician, discussed the donation in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press. JULIE JACOBSON — AP Photo
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