Facebook offers a $20 million sweetener to improve Silicon Valley communities

Mark Zuckerberg is well known for his philanthropic ventures -- he hardly keeps them quiet, after all. Now Facebook as a whole is getting in on the action, offering up a $20 million contribution to help improve the communities around Silicon Valley and the Bay Area.

It could be argued that the financial offering is not entirely selfless, but this will probably be of little concern to those who stand to benefit from a number of projects that will focus on building affordable housing, STEM training in the area, and legal support for those in need.

The social networking giant says that it would like the area to "remain strong and vibrant" and it wants, rather vaingloriously, to be instrumental in making this happen. To this end, it is teaming up with a number of partners to create a problem-solving coalition.

In a blog post explaining the new initiative, Facebook's Vice President for Public Policy and Communications, Elliot Schrage, says:

Affordable Housing
The partnership will establish a Catalyst Housing Fund with $18.5 million to pursue innovative and scalable ways to increase the production and protection of affordable housing. An additional $250,000 will go to Rebuilding Together Peninsula to support the building and upkeep of homes for low-income residents.

Economic Opportunity 
The partnership will devote $625,000 to job training in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. In addition, we’re establishing a dedicated local community liaison who will help connect community members with open positions at Facebook.

Legal Support 
We recognize that the situation is a crisis for many of our neighbors and that investments from the Catalyst Fund will take time to result in new units. To provide immediate relief to those facing particularly difficult circumstances, we’re dedicating $500,000 to an assistance fund to provide legal support to tenants threatened with displacement from evictions, unsafe living conditions and other forms of landlord abuse.

There's no word on just when things will get underway, but Facebook will be sure to let us know in plenty of time.

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