Chelsea Clinton is leaving NBC after three years as a special correspondent for the network, citing her desire to focus on the Clinton Foundation and her pregnancy, she told People magazine on Friday. 
 
 In a statement, the former first daughter said she was leaving the network "to continue focusing on my work at the Clinton Foundation and as Marc [Mezvinsky] and I look forward to welcoming our first child." 
 
 Clinton's departure brings an end to a lucrative three-year run during which she made a handful of feel-good packages for NBC's "Making a Difference" franchise. Clinton's annual salary at the network was $600,000, translating to roughly $26,724 for each minute she appeared on air -- a sore subject for the many hardworking journalists at NBC who made considerably less. In January, Clinton switched to a month-to-month contract. 
 
 Alex Wallace, the senior vice president of NBC News, said the network was "thankful for all of Chelsea’s contributions to NBC News over the past three years." 
 
 "Chelsea’s storytelling inspired people across the country and showcased the real power we have as individuals to make a difference in our communities," Wallace said. "While she will be missed, we look forward to working with her in the future.” 
 
 UPDATE (10:50 a.m.): Clinton also wrote about her departure on her Facebook page. 
 
 Read more about: NBC, Chelsea Clinton ||||| Chelsea Clinton is saying goodbye to her NBC News gig — and eye-popping $600,000 paycheck. 
 
 The 34-year-old mom-to-be revealed Friday she’s giving up her cushy special correspondent gig “to continue focusing on my work at the Clinton Foundation and as (my husband) Marc and I look forward to welcoming our first child.” 
 
 “It’s been a privilege to be part of the NBC Family,” Clinton added in a posting on her Facebook page. 
 
 “I admire the work and dedication that their reporters, producers, crews, editors and studio teams deliver every day.” 
 
 The ex-First Daughter nabbed a $600,000 salary for her handful of NBC News stories. (Mark Baker/AP) 
 
 Boasting a big name but zero experience in journalism, Clinton joined NBC News as a full-time special correspondent in 2011. 
 
 In the ensuing years, she filed a trickle of stories, primarily feel-good feature pieces for her "Making a Difference" segment highlighting nonprofit work. 
 
 A ripple of shock coursed through the industry after the former First Daughter’s seismic salary was revealed in June. 
 
 Co-workers no more: Chelsea Clinton, left, chats with Brian Willams, anchor of NBC News, where Clinton has quit her job as a special correspondent. (Peter Kramer/Peter Kramer/NBC) 
 
 Her last segment aired Aug. 1. Starting this year, Clinton was working for the network on a month-to-month basis. 
 
 "Chelsea’s storytelling inspired people across the country and showcased the real power we have as individuals to make a difference in our communities," said Alex Wallace, a senior vice president of NBC News. 
 
 "While she will be missed, we look forward to working with her in the future.” ||||| Chelsea Clinton made her journalism debut on NBC's "Making A Difference" series Monday night by telling the story of poverty, hardship and hope in her home state of Arkansas. 
 
 Annette Dove, who runs Targeting Our People’s Priorities With Service (TOPPS) in Pine Bluff, Ark., provides tutoring, mentoring, meals and more for kids and teens. Through her nonprofit, Dove, a former educator and youth minister, aims to break the cycle of poverty and offer support for kids, specifically for older teens, according to TOPPS . 
 
 Dove targets those whom others may perceive as hopeless after having strayed off the path, plucking many of them from the juvenile system. Many of her kids said they'd be in jail or possibly dead without her support, Clinton reported. 
 
 "Our kids are punished because parents are unable to provide for them, and I don't think that's fair," Dove told Clinton. "And I feel like children ought to have someone in their lives who will fight for them or help them." 
 
 Dove said she paid herself only $19,000 last year, more than half of which went back to TOPPS. She's even had to file for personal bankruptcy. But the Arkansas woman says it's her calling, improving lives in both concrete and intangible ways. 
 
 "Sometimes I pass by the building, and it's Sunday at 10 o'clock at night and Ms. Dove's car is parked here, and I'm wondering, like, what is she doing here working, you know. So seeing the standard that she set made me set a standard for my life." 
 
 Dove is trying to secure funding and hopes TOPPS will be able to survive. 
 
 It's this type of story, Clinton tells Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News, that can really make a difference. She explains she was inspired by her grandmother's recent passing. 
 
 "Recently, she had been cajoling me and challenging me...to lead more of a purposefully public life -- that being Chelsea Clinton had happened to me, and that I had a responsibility to do something with that asset and opportunity." 
 
 Clinton recently spoke at George Washington University and talked to students about how her father inspired her to tackle both global and local problems, ET Online reported. 
 
 "One of the reasons I'm most proud of my father is through his work with the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Global Initiative University," she told the college crowd. "He launched CGI and CGI U on the basic premise that everyone who wants to make a difference can and should. And the burden of how to turn good intentions into real action shouldn't be an insurmountable challenge." 
 
 Clinton told Williams that upcoming NBC segments will include stories similar to Dove's, featuring people who have felt called to help and want to inspire others to confront similar challenges in their own communities. 
 
 Feeling inspired to help? TOPPS is accepting donations to stay afloat.
– Chelsea Clinton is ditching her high-paid gig as a special correspondent for NBC News, People reports. The First Daughter says she'll continue her charity work with the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation as she and husband Marc Mezvinsky expect their first child. Clinton's upbeat NBC segments didn't draw huge audiences, the New York Times reports, but gave communities and nonprofits a lot of attention: "It’s hard to get stories like this told on a platform as big as NBC Nightly News," says the head of Share Our Strength, which helps feed needy children. Another example: The nonprofit TOPPS (which provides meals, mentoring, and tutoring for young people, notes Huffington Post) pulled in $300,000 after Clinton's segment on NBC, according to the network. Only rough patch for Clinton: Her "eye-popping" $600,000 salary, the Daily News reports, which Politico says earned her $26,724 for each minute of airtime (Chelsea dialed down her salary to a monthly paycheck "that allowed her to exit," the Times says). Critics also questioned whether her position was becoming a conflict of interest, as Hillary went on a book tour that some considered a de facto presidential-campaign launch.