The Citi Foun­da­tion (the “Foun­da­tion”) an­nounced that Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go was se­lect­ed to re­ceive US$500,000 in cat­alyt­ic fund­ing as part of the 2024 Glob­al In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge, which aims to sup­port so­lu­tions that ad­dress home­less­ness. In Latam, oth­er nine NGO’s from Ar­genti­na, Brazil, Colom­bia, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Ecuador, El Sal­vador, Mex­i­co and Pe­ru al­so were se­lect­ed to re­ceive fund­ing, for a to­tal of 50 com­mu­ni­ty or­ga­ni­za­tions around the world that col­lec­tive will re­ceive $25 mil­lion dol­lars.

Citi Foun­da­tion in a news re­lease said hous­ing in­se­cu­ri­ty im­pacts com­mu­ni­ties glob­al­ly, with the Unit­ed Na­tions es­ti­mat­ing that more than 1.8 bil­lion peo­ple around the world lack ad­e­quate hous­ing and ba­sic ser­vices. This lat­est phil­an­thropic in­vest­ment builds on Citi and the Citi Foun­da­tion’s ef­forts to cat­alyze eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment glob­al­ly.

“We are very proud to part­ner through Citi Foun­da­tion with Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty with the ob­jec­tive of em­pow­er­ing fam­i­lies to build their own homes and ac­cess in­ter­est-free loans, pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able so­lu­tions that strength­en hous­ing sta­bil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment. We rec­og­nize that safe, af­ford­able and sta­ble hous­ing is a key con­trib­u­tor to the eco­nom­ic and so­cial well-be­ing of low-in­come house­holds and com­mu­ni­ties around the world”, said Mitchell De Sil­va, Citi Coun­try Of­fi­cer & Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, Citibank (Trinidad and To­ba­go) Ltd.

It not­ed that 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.

This grant will be im­ple­ment­ed over the next two years and Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty will have ac­cess to a learn­ing com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­tat­ed by IDEO.org, a non­prof­it fo­cused on de­sign­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices in the so­cial im­pact sec­tor. Through the learn­ing com­mu­ni­ty, Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty 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 or­ga­ni­za­tion 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.”

In Jan­u­ary 2024, the Citi Foun­da­tion is­sued this Glob­al In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge Re­quest for Pro­pos­als (RFP). For more in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing the com­plete list of grant re­cip­i­ents, please vis­it citi­foun­da­tion.com/chal­lenge and fol­low the im­pact these or­ga­ni­za­tions are mak­ing at #In­no­va­tion­Chal­lenge on so­cial me­dia.