OVERVIEW: The Citi Foundation supports education, disaster relief, and community development around the world. Above all else, its grants prioritize job skills, and financial inclusion and literacy.
IP TAKE: This foundation supports organizations with demonstrated success and does not accept unsolicited proposals. Large organizations with an established footprint will have the most success here, which leaves out grassroots efforts. Neither does this funder like to take risks, despite its affiliation with its corporate banking sister. It’s grantmaking is not particularly inclusive. This funder also won’t even bother taking any outreach or networking into consideration. To get tapped on the shoulder for funding here, you need to be a large, established organization that can work at the global scale. Everyone else must look elsewhere.
PROFILE: The Citi Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Citibank, a multinational financial services firm based in New York City. The foundation aims to promote “economic progress and improve the lives of people in low-income communities around the world.” It supports youth economic opportunity, Community Solutions, and financial inclusion through partnerships with nonprofit organizations and internal programs. It makes grants for education, disaster relief, and community and global development.
Grants for Education
The Citi Foundation’s grants for education support students from kindergarten through college. Most of the foundation’s education efforts prioritize job training and financial literacy.
Grants for K-12 Education
The Citi Foundation supports K-12 education through its signature Pathways to Progress initiative, which encourages young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 to acquire marketable skills through education and job training, to find jobs, and to develop businesses of their own. Through a partnership with INJAZ-Al-Arab, the foundation provided workforce readiness and financial literacy training to 9,000 students from nine countries across North Africa and the Middle East. In the United States, the foundation runs the Summer Jobs Connect program, which connects young people with employment opportunities and financial literacy experiences. A data base of past grants is available on the foundation's webpage.
Grants for College Readiness
The Citi Foundation supports college readiness through its signature Pathways to Progress initiative, which encourages young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 to acquire marketable skills through education and job training to find jobs, and to develop businesses of their own. One past grantee is the Opportunity Network, a New York City-based organization that offers academic support, guidance, training, and internships to underserved high school students. Another grantee, YouthBuild USA, provides low-income youth who have not completed high school with job training and educational skills for postsecondary success. A data base of past grants is available on the foundation's webpage.
Grants for Higher Education
Citi supports higher education through its youth economic opportunities funding initiative. The program aims to “help young people link education goals with leadership skills training and experiences, professional networks, and on-ramps to employment to increase the number of low-income youth, ages 16-25, who are able to get a job or start an income-generating business.” To this end, Citi runs its signature Pathways to Progress program, which provides youth with summer employment opportunities, financial education and banking access.
Past higher education grantees include entrepreneurship programs at Cornell University, Florida International University and the University of Notre Dame. A data base of past grants is available on the foundation's webpage.
Grants for Housing and Homelessness, Community Development
Among Citi’s Signature Programs, the Community Progress Makers Fund is a “$20 million, two-year initiative” committed to building “stronger, more resilient cities that catalyze economic opportunity for all their residents,” which includes supporting programs for “economic development,” “affordable housing,” “environmental sustainability,” and “urban infrastructure.” The Community Progress Makers operate in six cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Francisco Area, and Washington D.C. Moreover, in 2014 Citi launched the City Accelerator in 32 American cities. This initiative promotes “innovative efforts that generate economic opportunities for low-income populations and help municipalities run more effectively.”
Past community development grantees include America's Promise Alliance, Lakota Fund, and Koreatown Youth and Community Center. A data base of past grants is available on the foundation's webpage.
Grants for Global Development
Citi’s Financial Inclusion program supports organizations that are creating more inclusive global finance systems that offer increased access to financial services and products in low-income populations. Considered a unique approach by the foundation, it recognizes that increasing access to financial services and products is only one aspect of the global financial inclusion equation, and is not a solution in and of itself. Consequently, Citi supports efforts that increase positive financial behaviors and strategies that the foundation considers to be “critical to the economic success of individuals and communities." To help young people compete more effectively in the modern global job market, Citi also focuses its youth grantmaking on helping youth populations—specifically those ages 16 to 25—obtain the necessary skills education, and training to help increase their employability or to put them on the path to starting their own businesses. Youth grants are awarded out of the foundation’s Youth Economic Opportunities program.
The Citi Foundation supports geographically specific financial inclusion work in Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. It also awards a number of financial inclusion grants to organizations working on a global scale, rather than a specific region of the world.
Past global development grantees include JA Worldwide, United Nations Development Programme, and ACCION International. A data base of past grants is available on the foundation's webpage.
Grants for Humanitarian and Disaster Relief
The Citi Foundation seeks to improve the financial outlook for disadvantaged communities everywhere, including communities recovering from major natural disasters. Some grants provide “immediate relief” supporting rescue relief the first few days or weeks following a disaster. However, the Citi Foundation predominately focuses on aid meant to "identify and fund innovative disaster mitigation efforts that align with [Citi's] financial inclusion goals" and within immediate relief, "to develop strategic alliances with key organizations able to deploy relief work at a minutes’ notice." The Citi Foundation thus supports efforts to revive economic activity in the wake of a disaster.
Past grantees in this area include American National Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, and Management Leadership for Tomorrow. In 2020, Citi committed $100 million toward COVID-10 community relief and economic recovery. A data base of past grants is available on the foundation's webpage.
Important Grant Details:
Citi Foundation grants range from $50,000 to $2 million, with an average grant size of about $150,000. The foundation supports organizations throughout the world, generally funding nonprofits with "demonstrated success."
A data base of past grants is available on the foundation's webpage. The foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals and will not review unsolicited materials. All grants are by invitation only, and the foundation’s website emphasizes this. Recipients tend to be large INGOs.
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