Toplines May 17, 2025: Priscilla Chan Philanthropy - Inside Philanthropy

The Rise and Receding of Priscilla Chan | Inside Philanthropy Skip to main content 
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 David Callahan 

 Founder & Editor-in-Chief

 Over the past few years, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — which is backstopped by a Meta fortune that stands at $ 220 billion — has been winding down its grantmaking focused on social inequities. That process now seems to be coming to a final end, according to an article this week by the San Francisco Standard. Eventually, it looks like nearly all of CZI’s giving will focus on scientific research. 

 I can’t recall another mega-donor couple backtracking so completely from their early ambition, which they once said was to “build a more inclusive, just and healthy future for everyone.” I’m fascinated by Priscilla Chan’s role in all this. Five years ago, she was on her way to being one of the most important philanthropists of our time, and one with a strong progressive bent. Now she seems to be receding from view — although I did see a photo of her at Trump’s inauguration.

 It’s hard not to wonder if Chan has been waylaid by our post-woke times and a tech bro husband eager to keep the White House happy. Or maybe the story is quite different, one of pragmatic philanthropists winnowing down an expansive agenda to focus on the work they care about most. Another possibility is that Chan and Zuckerberg are among the many mainstream liberals who found themselves turned off by progressive advocates — so turned off they decided to stick to funding scientists. Whatever the explanation, they’re in the last stages of a dramatic philanthropic retreat, one with enormous consequences for multiple issue areas where the couple had become leading funders.

 Eleven years ago, I published an article, “ Four Things to Know About Priscilla Chan, and One Prediction ,” that was filled with hope. I suggested that Chan was exactly the kind of person that you’d want to help give away a vast fortune. 

 She’s the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents who fled Vietnam as refugees and worked long hours to rise into the middle class, while Chan was mostly raised by her grandparents, who didn’t speak English. She’s a pediatrician who’s seen the challenges that low-income people face in our healthcare system. Beyond her empathy, she has the smarts of a high school valedictorian turned Harvard grad.

 When the day came that Chan gave up practicing medicine to become a full-time philanthropist — as I predicted she would — I imagined that she’d be a powerful leader of what would eventually become one of the world’s largest foundations. 

 Those hopes burned strong over the next few years as Chan and Zuckerberg stepped up their giving. While Zuck had famously made a mess of his first big foray into K-12 philanthropy, with a top-down debacle in Newark, Chan helped chart a very different direction. CZI’s education giving in Silicon Valley involved deeply listen

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