Social-minded startups with ties to Y Combinator, a well-known provider of seed funding, will soon get another benefit from the relationship.  Last night, Facebook announced that it will provide support to the startups in a number of ways.

Don't look for more money to change hands; Facebook hasn't quite decided to become a venture capital firm.  The organization's ready to lend just about every other form of assistance imaginable, though.

Carl Sjogreen, a product manager who used to work for Google, wrote on the Facebook Developer Blog, "We'll provide product, technical and design resources to support new Y Combinator companies interested in working with us to build deeply social products, whether a website or an application on Facebook.com."

Also, according to Sjogreen, "These companies will have priority access to our technologies and programs such as Facebook Credits, Instant Personalization and upcoming beta features."

That's not a bad offer.  And considering that Y Combinator's funded innovative companies like Dropbox, Justin.tv, Posterous, Reddit, and Scribd, it's a good bet that Facebook's assistance won't go to waste.

Here's the page through which firms can apply for Y Combinator funding in case any WebProNews readers want to get in on the action.