One World One Way

Charity

A letter to our daughter

by: Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan

Mark Zuckerberg charity for better world

Cultural Intelligence

  

 Mark Zuckerberg pledges 99% of his Facebook shares to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

aimed at improving this world for the next generation.

 

Healthcare  ●  Advancing human potential and promoting equality

 

Mark Zuckerberg Priscilla Chan Letter to our daughter Max

 
Priscilla and I are so happy to welcome our daughter Max into this world!
For her birth, we wrote a letter to her about the world we hope she grows up in. It's a world where our generation can advance human potential and promote equality ‒ by curing disease, personalizing learning, harnessing clean energy, connecting people, building strong communities, reducing poverty, providing equal rights and spreading understanding across nations. We are committed to doing our small part to help create this world for all children. We will give 99% of our Facebook shares ‒ currently about $45 billion ‒ during our lives to join many others in improving this world for the next generation.

Thank you to everyone in this community for all your love and support during the pregnancy. You've given us hope that together we can build this world for Max and all children.

 

Dear Max,

Your mother and I don't yet have the words to describe the hope you give us for the future. Your new life is full of promise, and we hope you will be happy and healthy so you can explore it fully. You've already given us a reason to reflect on the world we hope you live in.

Like all parents, we want you to grow up in a world better than ours today.

While headlines often focus on what's wrong, in many ways the world is getting better. Health is improving. Poverty is shrinking. Knowledge is growing. People are connecting. Technological progress in every field means your life should be dramatically better than ours today.

We will do our part to make this happen, not only because we love you, but also because we have a moral responsibility to all children in the next generation.

We believe all lives have equal value, and that includes the many more people who will live in future generations than live today. Our society has an obligation to invest now to improve the lives of all those coming into this world, not just those already here.

But right now, we don't always collectively direct our resources at the biggest opportunities and problems your generation will face.

Consider disease. Today we spend about 50 times more as a society treating people who are sick than we invest in research so you won't get sick in the first place.

Medicine has only been a real science for less than 100 years, and we've already seen complete cures for some diseases and good progress for others. As technology accelerates, we have a real shot at preventing, curing or managing all or most of the rest in the next 100 years.

Today, most people die from five things ‒ heart disease, cancer, stroke, neurodegenerative and infectious diseases ‒ and we can make faster progress on these and other problems.

Once we recognize that your generation and your children's generation may not have to suffer from disease, we collectively have a responsibility to tilt our investments a bit more towards the future to make this reality. Your mother and I want to do our part.

Curing disease will take time. Over short periods of five or ten years, it may not seem like we're making much of a difference. But over the long term, seeds planted now will grow, and one day, you or your children will see what we can only imagine: a world without suffering from disease.

There are so many opportunities just like this. If society focuses more of its energy on these great challenges, we will leave your generation a much better world... More