Blue Dragon receives Citi Foundation funding to support homeless children

On September 24, the Citi Foundation announced the 50 community organisations around the world that are set to each receive $500,000 in funding as part of the 2024 Global Innovation Challenge, which aims to support solutions that address homelessness.

Housing insecurity impacts communities globally, with the United Nations estimating that 1.8 billion people around the world lack adequate housing.

This latest philanthropic investment builds on Citi and the Citi Foundation’s efforts to catalyse economic opportunity globally. Citi has been the largest affordable housing lender in the US for 14 consecutive years and has supported the development of housing across developed and emerging markets as part of its $1 Trillion Sustainable Finance Goal.

"Homelessness is one of the most vexing challenges that communities face," said Edward Skyler, Citi head of Enterprise Services and Public Affairs and chair of the Citi Foundation. "Interventions that have a meaningful impact are hard to come by. The Citi Foundation is investing in these organisations as part of the 2024 Global Innovation Challenge because we believe they have the potential to launch and scale solutions that can move the needle on this issue."

Homelessness is a complex issue, and the Citi Foundation has been inspired by the level of innovation and impact it saw from applicants and their efforts to target the diverse needs of communities around the world.

As one of the 2024 Global Innovation Challenge’s recipients, Blue Dragon is providing safe emergency housing and long-term case management support for youth experiencing homelessness in Vietnam.

Blue Dragon has been implementing the Step Ahead Programme in Hanoi since 2004 to provide comprehensive and individualised support for homeless youth.

Its goal is to help homeless children get off the streets, reunite with their families and build positive futures. Blue Dragon will use Citi Foundation funding to scale up the programme in Hanoi and replicate it in Ho Chi Minh city.

Programmes funded by these grants will be implemented over the next two years and grantees will have access to a learning community facilitated by IDEO.org, a non-profit focused on designing products and services in the social impact sector. Through the learning community, grantees will have the opportunity to build deeper connections, share lessons learned and exchange best practices.

“Since launching the inaugural Global Innovation Challenge in early 2023, we’ve continued to see how community-based solutions are poised to accelerate impact on the ground,” said Brandee McHale, president of the Citi Foundation and head of Citi Community Investing & Development. “We call this grant support ‘catalytic’ given the multiplier effect it can have on low-income communities. Each organisation will not only directly impact the lives of people in crisis today, but also create models that can be replicated in other communities around the world tomorrow.”

Citi Foundation supports local innovation and startups Vietnam has seen huge growth in startups in recent years, with 3,000 registered startups in 2017.

UNDP and Citi Foundation drive Youth Social Entrepreneurship Movement Youth Co:Lab, a project co-led by the UNDP and Citi Foundation, is the largest youth-led social entrepreneurship movement in the region driving the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Citi Foundation announces recipients of Inaugural Global Innovation Challenge Fifty organisations have been granted a total of $25 million to pilot or expand catalytic solutions to improve food security globally, according to the Citi Foundation.