Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

In 2012, Mark Zuckerberg, the cofounder and CEO of Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms ( Facebook Inc.), along his wife Priscilla Chan announced that, in the spirit of the Giving Pledge, they would also commit the majority of their wealth for charitable purposes to contribute to "advance human potential and promote equality".

Three years later, in 2015, Zuckerberg and Chan officially declared that they would give 99 percent of their wealth from their Facebook shares to charity over their lifetime, marking the birth of The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). The CZI was described as an example of philanthrocapitalism, as its value is always linked to the Zuckerberg couple’s Facebook shares at a given point in time valuation.

The CZI’s main areas of work include Education, Science, Justice and Opportunity. Its mission is to "build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone" by promoting "equality in areas such as health, education, scientific research and energy" and focusing primarily on criminal justice reform, immigration justice and housing affordability. The CZI’s current value is estimated at $45 billion in Facebook shares, exceeding the endowments of the Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations combined. By giving  $1 billion per year to charity for the next three years as estimated in the couple’s pledge, Zuckerberg and Chan are set to become the world’s second-largest charitable donors, right after Bill Gates.

In its early days, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) _invested $24 million in _Andela, a training startup and a global job placement network for software developers in Africa through a four-year fellowship program with U.S. companies in need of software development help. In 2016, along with Sequoia Capital, the CZI co-donated $50millions to Byju's, an Indian tech-education startup which focuses on offering online video-based learning programs for high school students in order to fuel their international expansion outside of India.

In the same year, through a $600 millions donation, Zuckerberg and his wife launched the _Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, _a collaborative research space in San Francisco's Mission Bay District to encourage collaboration between scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University.

In 2018, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) pledged $30 millions to the_ Reach Every Reader project, a web-based screening tool for reading difficulties that diagnoses underlying causes and helps identify kindergarteners who are at high risk for developing reading difficulties. In the same year, the _CZI _launched _Opportunity Insights, a non-profit research and policy institute focused on combating poverty and improving economic opportunity in the US.

In 2019, in partnership with The San Francisco Foundation, the CZI launched the Partnership for the Bay's Future to "preserve, produce, and protect affordable housing". This was achieved through a  $500+ million donation for subsidized housing units in the Bay Area, including additional funds to help advocate local housing legislation that promotes affordability and protects tenants.

In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Zuckerberg and his wife donated $25 millions to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation accelerator which aimed to develop treatments against the virus, as well as $25 millions to the industry of journalism which was significantly impacted by the pandemic, in addition to $75 million in advertisement purchases in local newspapers for Facebook, Inc.

Recently, in May 2022, the_ Chan Zuckerberg Initiative_ announced it will grant more than $4 millions to support various education communities and teacher retention programs, primarily through training and mentoring, including a $1 million donation to_ FuelED_ to promote Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging for educators of color, and a $500,000 additional donation to the Black Male Educators Alliance of Michigan.

As of November 2022, Zuckerberg's net worth was $33.5 billion according to the Forbes Real Time Billionaires, _making him the 29th richest person in the world. He was also ranked tenth on _Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People thanks to both his tech and philanthropic efforts.

Contributor: Maha Tazi