Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, with an aim to fulfill their pledge to donate 99 percent the Facebook stocks to charity, took the first step. Zuckerberg made the first cash infusion to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) last week by selling 767,905 shares amounting to $ 95 million (around Rs. 638 crores), according to a regulatory filing. In a letter to their daughter Zuckerberg and Chan in December had announced the launch of CZI where both of them promised to give away 99% of their Facebook shares which amounted to nearly $45 billion, at that time.
The aim for creating the group according to the social media giant founder, was to ‘join people across the world to advance human potential and promote equality.’ In the letter, Zuckerberg wrote, “For your generation to live in a better world, there is so much more our generation can do. Today your mother and I are committing to spend our lives doing our small part to help solve these challenges.”
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s investments which will amount somewhere around $ 85 million after capital gains taxes, will focus on education, curing diseases, and community building, according to their website. They have to pay the taxes since it is a limited liability company instead of being a non-profit organisation. The organisation is able to fund nonprofits and at the same time can make private investments.
The first big investment was done by the group in June where it funded a start-up called Andela which trains and recruits software developers in African regions.
This is a beginning of what may be many more such investments as Zuckerberg had said that he can sell or gift around $1 billion worth of Facebook stocks every year.
