Beyonce plans charity drive on 'Formation' tour

Pop superstar Beyonce announced Wednesday that she would partner with charities on her upcoming tour, raising support for causes including improving water in lead-poisoned Flint, Michigan.

Beyonce, whose "Formation" tour opens next Wednesday, encouraged fans to contribute on the CrowdRise website to the United Way charity in Flint, with donors entered into a raffle to win VIP-section tickets.

Fans can also win tickets and upgrades by signing up on-site at concerts to support groups.

The beneficiaries are Global Citizen, which is dedicated to ending extreme poverty worldwide and puts on an annual concert in New York's Central Park, and Chime for Change, a group founded by the Gucci fashion house that works with Global Citizen to promote the inclusion of women and girls.

"Through our collaborations with our strategic charity partners, we've created simple ways for everyone to participate," said Ivy McGregor, director of philanthropy at Beyonce's charitable arm BeyGood.

"Because we believe together we can make the world better -- standing, living and giving in Good Formation," she said.

The United Way, generally considered the largest charity in the United States, will also highlight local issues on each stop.

Beyonce also plans charity events on the sidelines of the tour in her hometown of Houston, the gangsta rap capital of Compton, California, and in Detroit where she will highlight the water crisis in nearby Flint.

More than 8,000 children in low-income Flint, which is majority African American, are believed to have drunk municipal water tainted by lead levels that had grown alarmingly high but were not immediately addressed by the government.

Beyonce has named the tour after her new song "Formation," one of her most political works in which she takes up the mantle of the Black Lives Movement against police brutality.

Cable network HBO on Saturday will broadcast a Beyonce project entitled "Lemonade," which a fan site has speculated will be an "album-film."