Last week, Cisco was once again named a top corporate philanthropist by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Cisco ranked#2 with US$19.2 million in contributions to Silicon Valley nonprofits and community organizations - just$240,000 behind the#1 corporate donor, the Sobrato Organization. By lending our support in our backyard, we hope to demonstrate our belief that what is good for the community is good for business.

Cisco employees, led by Senior Vice President Randy Pond (4th from right) accept the Top Silicon Valley Philanthropist Award from the Silicon Valley Business Journal on November 6, 2014.

Since 2009, Cisco and the Cisco Foundation have contributed over$50 million in cash to Bay Area community-based organizations - not to mention our employees have volunteered  hundreds of thousands of hours. Cisco's philanthropic focuses are education, healthcare, economic empowerment, and critical human needs. We invest in scalable and self-sustaining programs that meet some of society's biggest challenges.

Beneficiaries of Cisco's support include:

• The Housing Trust of Silicon Valley, which used our grant funding to create hundreds of affordable housing units.
• Second Harvest Food Bank, which with our support enrolled as many as 4000 people in the supplemental nutrition assistance program - equating to$14 million in federal food assistance and another$25 million in local economic activity.
• Aim High, which helps close the opportunity gap for under-resourced middle school students by providing them with a free summer learning program.

We also partner with after-school providers such as City Year and Citizen Schools to extend learning time by up to 90 days per calendar year for more than 5000 underserved students. Nearly 85 percent of them will experience an increase in literacy and math scores.

Now that is "impact multiplied" to make a difference!

Learn more about Cisco's support for nonprofits and other community partners at csr.cisco.com.