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Mark Zuckerberg will donate 99 percent of his Facebook shares

The growing Chan Zuckerberg family is putting its fortune behind efforts to 'advance human potential.'

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan

While birth announcements are common on Facebook, founder Mark Zuckerberg's post is a little different than most of the new parent pics in your newsfeed. That's because along with welcoming daughter Maxima to the family, he and his wife Priscilla Chan announced their commitment to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares -- currently worth about $45 billion -- to fund the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative that will try to "advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation." The two joined the Giving Pledge in 2010, promising to use most of their wealth for philanthropic efforts, and today's announcement sheds more detail on how that will happen.

They will give away the shares gradually, and an SEC filing says the CEO will not sell or gift more than $1 billion in shares per year for the next three years, and that he plans to maintain his majority voting position. The initiative is kicking off its efforts by focusing on "personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities."

A few weeks before Max's birth, Priscilla and Mark took a morning to reflect and record their hopes for their daughter and all children of her generation.

Posted by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative on Tuesday, December 1, 2015

[Image credit: Peter Barreras/Invision/AP, File]