Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced on Friday, May 30th, that they will donate $120 million to the San Francisco Bay Area’s public school system. The amount will be donated over the next five years.
Donation is the biggest allocation to date of the $1.1 billion in Facebook stock that the couple pledged to the non-profit Silicon Valley Community Foundation, last year.
Donation to enhance schooling
On Thursday, Chan said during an interview at Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) headquarters that education is very expensive and the donation is really very small. She said that both of them are trying to bring change by exploring and promoting the development of new interventions and new models.
Schools in districts San Francisco, Ravenswood and Redwood City will get the first share of the $5 million to enhance principal training, classroom technology and improving student transition from 8th to the 9th grade. Both Mark Zuckerberg and Chan along with their foundation ‘Startup: Education’ came up with focus areas based on discussions with school administrators and local leaders.
The couple talked about the donation in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press. Chan made first appearance in public and both were interviewed together for the first time.
Philanthropic Facebook couple
The Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) CEO said that he is focused on connecting the world and Chan is primarily focused on children. “And we’re able to do some of this work together, which is neat…There are interesting overlaps.”
The couple has made philanthropy an important part of their life together and they also made largest charitable gift on record for 2013. Previous to that donation of $1.1 billion, the couple donated $500 million to the Silicon Valley Foundation.
Zuckerberg was the 21st richest person on the Forbes list last year, just behind Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and ahead of billionaire investors such as Carl Icahn and philanthropist George Soros. Zuckerberg is the owner of Facebook stock worth over $27 billion.
Zuckerberg and Chan met while studying in Harvard and married in their Palo Alto backyard on May 19, 2012. Back in 2010, the Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) couple joined the Giving Pledge, an initiative by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett to encourage country’s richest people to donate most of their wealth.
