Corporate Citizenship

In Australia, Citi is committed to the long term sustainability of our business and making a difference in our local community. Our corporate citizenship initiatives focus on financial education, environment, children, employees in the community and the workplace.

Financial Education

Financial education is all about managing money and is a key priority at Citi - it is a natural extension of the work we do and helps make a difference in our local community.

Every day people make decisions about money; whether it's shopping for food and clothes, paying household bills or simply deciding when to pay by cash or credit card. The choices are endless. As the world of personal finance becomes increasingly complex, it's important that people have the skills to make wise decisions about spending, personal debt, choosing financial products, planning for the future and avoiding financial scams.

In 2004, the US-based Citi Foundation made a historic 10 year, $200 million global commitment to financial education and is now well ahead of schedule in funding that commitment.

In Australia, Citi has partnered with YWCA NSW in Finance First, a joint initiative to introduce financial education programs to students and their parents. There are two programs, MakingCents which has complementary streams for primary school students and parents, and Hip Pocket for teenagers.

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Environment

At Citi, we believe that working to promote environmental and social sustainability is good business practice. As a global corporate citizen, we view sustainability issues from both a risk and an opportunity perspective by analyzing the potential impacts of our business activities and taking action to reduce environmental risk. We also look for opportunities to make sustainable investments and develop products and services with positive environmental and social impacts.

Citi is a Conservation Volunteers Australia 'Action for Climate Change' partner. This partnership demonstrates our commitment to addressing local environmental issues by providing tangible support to Conservation Volunteers. The partnership has a multi-tiered approach to achieving objectives and includes;

• Conservation Conversations- events to educate employees and key stakeholders about issues relating to the environment
• Employee volunteering- opportunities for Citi employees to support conservation projects
• Tree planting- Citi has provided funding to assist in tree planting initiatives through Conservation Volunteers' Action for Climate Change program.

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Children

Citi's programs focus on helping children reach their potential through the support of education programs and health/medical research. Citi Supports;

Australian Business Community Network (ABCN)

Citi has joined the ABCN- a group of businesses working with public schools to broaden opportunities for students and support innovation and enterprise. We support ABCN through three programs;

• Partners in Learning- links business and educational professionals so they can share experiences, solve problems and explore leadership challenges together.
• GOALS- is a one-on-one mentoring partnership that aims to widen the life choices students considered at risk of disengaging from school.
• Career Choice Day- Citi plays host to groups of students for a day to demonstrate the range of careers available at Citi.

Bear Cottage

Bear Cottage is the only children's hospice in NSW and provides palliative care, respite care and bereavement support for families. Citi employees have been supporting Bear Cottage through Workplace Giving and volunteering for a number of years and Citi has provided financial support since Bear Cottage's inception in 1998. Citi sponsored the establishment of a Sensory Garden, which officially opened in 2004 and has also been the event sponsor of Bear Cottage's annual fundraising event, A Bear Affair, which has raised over $500,000 since 2005.

Shepherd Centre

The Shepherd Centre works with children who are deaf and hearing impaired to teach them to speak and communicate in the hearing world. Citi employees have supported the Shepherd Centre for several years through the Citi Workplace Giving program and in addition, Citi hosts the annual Shepherd Centre dinner to support children with hearing impairment.

Employees in the community

Citi has developed a strong culture of employee involvement in the community and to help facilitate this have well established workplace giving and volunteering programs.

The Citi Workplace Giving program enables employees to make regular donations on a pre-tax basis to specific charities through regular payroll deductions. Charities have been selected based on feedback from employees and over $100,000 is donated to charity each year through this program.

All Citi employees are entitled to one day paid volunteering leave, however Citi provides flexibility to take this leave over a period of time. Volunteering leave is available for employees to support a charity they are passionate about, or to participate in mentoring programs with Citi community partners. Mentoring programs vary between helping students with numeracy and literacy to coaching in financial education and life skills.

Workplace

Citi values a work environment where diversity is embraced, where people are promoted on their merits and where people treat each other with mutual respect and dignity. Around the world, we are committed to being a company where the best people want to work; where opportunities to develop are widely available; where innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit are valued; and a healthy work life balance is encouraged.

Trumpets Childcare Centre

This is an important initiative for Citigroup, undertaken because of significant and ongoing demand for childcare support from our employees and is a community issue. We realise that responsibility for very young children can make great demands on employees. For Sydney employees and people working in the Sydney CBD, we have opened Trumpets Childcare Centre. It's a new, purpose built centre which is managed by Jigsaw Corporate Childcare, Australia. For more information click here.