Citi Community Development's Ruth Christopherson, George Wright and Ashley Thompson set out recently on a road trip to visit our non-profit partners and grant recipients across South Dakota. The journey covered 1,000 miles in three days. Here is Part One of their story:

Our journey started early on this bright morning and our first stop was in Fort Thompson. There we visited our partners at The Harvest Initiative, a project organized in 2008 to create and facilitate economic opportunity on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation. Harvest Initiative is two years old and Citi has been working with them from the beginning to support Native American small businesses.

We met Sherwood Hawk, the first grant recipient and proud owner of Hawk Tire Service. He truly captures the spirit of entrepreneurship in Indian country, and quickly demonstrated his sharp wit and keen sense of business when he charged us a $50 photograph fee. (He was kidding!)

New York City recently hosted the National Conference on Volunteering & Service (NCVS), a large gathering of volunteer and service leaders. Convened by the Points of Light Institute and the Corporation for National and Community Service, the event provided 5,800 attendees with opportunities to share best practices through plenary sessions and workshops. Citi gave me the opportunity to attend in order to learn new skills and gain new connections for my roles as co-chair of Citi's New York Volunteer Council and as community outreach chair for a network of employees focused on sustainability.

There were several key themes repeated throughout the conference: 1) corporations have an obligation--and are strongly positioned--to drive change in the community; 2) companies must connect employees to the causes they're already passionate about and provide ample opportunity to serve; 3) involving the community in our outreach projects enables them to be agents in their own success; and 4) individual citizens can (and must) make a difference.

We started new.citi.com to help begin a dialogue about how Citi is changing as an institution. While we've certainly said quite a bit over the last few months, we've also received candid and useful feedback from you. Through the "Help Us Build a New Citi" feature, you have provided both constructive criticism and words of encouragement.

We thank all of our visitors who have taken the time to leave comments. We very much appreciate your remarks and hope you'll take the opportunity to see what others are saying. Meanwhile, please continue to send us your thoughts and suggestions. Follow the conversation on the "Help Us Build a New Citi" comments page.

Citi has appointed Irene Fang as Corporate Fair Lending Director for all of its U.S.-based businesses. Dr. Fang will be responsible for managing Citi's robust Fair Lending program to ensure consistency across businesses with regard to fair lending policies and practices. A thought leader in the fair lending field, Dr. Fang joins Citi after a 21-year career at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Most recently she was head of the Compliance Risk Analysis Division in the Economics Department, which supports the annual fair lending reviews at every bank in the OCC's large bank program and a number of midsize and community banks.

Vikram Pandit, Citi CEO, said, "'Fair Lending is a cornerstone of Responsible Finance. The addition of Irene Fang demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that our senior leadership embeds the industry's best and most innovative practices into all of our businesses."

As summer heats up, Americans' outlook on the national economy seems to be cooling. A new nationwide survey issued by Citi, and conducted by Hart Research Associates, shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the economy has yet to hit bottom. But while their view of the overall economy isn't all sunshine, many folks think their own personal financial outlook is a little brighter.

Of those surveyed, 24 percent said their local economy is good or excellent, up from 19 percent in March. And the percentage of Americans who say their personal financial situation is better now than a year ago has improved slightly, to 17 percent today from 15 percent in March. Perhaps more important, 64 percent of Americans remain very or somewhat optimistic that their financial situation will improve in the next 12 months.

In a post this spring on new.citi.com, we wrote about how Californians were bouncing back from the economic crisis, despite misgivings about their state's economic future - including its budget gap. That phenomenon got us curious, and we set out to learn how folks think the state should improve its bottom line. Would people favor reducing spending? If so, what programs would they cut? What about raising taxes?

We asked those questions in the latest Citi California Pulse™ survey, which revealed that most Californians would choose state spending cuts over increased taxes to help close the state's budget deficit.

Earlier this month, Euromoney announced the winners of its 2010 Awards for Excellence. Citi was the proud recipient of 13 awards, each of which highlighted our growing strength, global capabilities--and the commitment and dedication of our employees around the world.

Euromoney's inaugural Banker of the Year honor went to CEO Vikram Pandit, who dedicated the award to his colleagues, and accepted it on behalf of Citi employees. Citi's 12 institutional honors included awards for operations on five continents, and Best Global Transaction Banking House for our Global Transaction Services business, which processes over $3 trillion in worldwide transactions daily, serving 96 percent of the world's Fortune 500 companies.

A much-needed affordable housing development for low-income seniors in Brooklyn, New York, financed in part by Citi, is now open and occupied. The development, known as Crown Heights Apartments, has services such as home care, meals and transportation to enable elderly residents to "age in place." 

New York City has been on a major push to create and preserve more affordable housing. The city's initiative hit a milestone in May by completing the 100,000th unit towards its goal of creating or preserving 165,000 additional affordable homes before 2014. "We're proud to support the development of affordable housing for New York residents across the demographic spectrum," said Eileen Auld, State Director for Citi Community Development, "and the Crown Heights Apartments for seniors is a wonderful addition. Through our long-standing partnerships with the New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC) and other agencies and nonprofits, we've been able to have a significant impact. Economic empowerment starts with having a decent, affordable place to live, and Citi will continue working hard to help provide affordable housing for underserved New Yorkers."

Citi CEO Vikram Pandit made the following statement after Congressional conferees voted in support of comprehensive legislation to reform the U.S. financial regulatory system:

"Throughout the legislative process, Citi has fully supported efforts to strengthen regulations and protect consumers. I have been outspoken about the need for banks to be banks, focused on their clients and not speculating with their own capital; I have fully supported ending the phenomenon of 'too big to fail'; and I believe we must have a level playing field--the same rules for everybody and real transparency into financial transactions. Many of the reforms in the bill are consistent with these important principles.

"At the same time, we are working hard in the more than 100 countries where Citi operates to instill a culture of Responsible Finance by making sure our actions create economic value, are in our customers' interests, and are systemically responsible.