Serving Communities

GRI: 3-3, 203-2a, 207-1
UN SDGs: 2, 5, 8
S | Published: May 31, 2023

As a people-led, tech-powered omni-channel retailer with a physical presence in thousands of communities around the world, Walmart seeks to help those communities thrive and become more resilient.

Strong businesses help communities thrive; likewise, strong communities help businesses thrive. Walmart serves hundreds of millions of customers every week and employs approximately 2.1 million associates who live, work, and play in thousands of communities around the world. Our business success is interdependent with meeting the needs and expectations of our customers, associates, and other stakeholders by contributing to these communities in ways that create lasting value.

We aim to create value for communities by:

• Providing convenient access to affordable, quality goods and services through our omni-channel business model and everyday low prices
• Contributing to economic vitality by providing quality jobs, training and career paths, investing in local suppliers, and contributing to local economies  
• Strengthening community resilience by supporting local organizations and causes that matter to our customers and associates, increasing food access, and preparing for and responding to disasters
• Building more inclusive and engaged communities by advancing equity, supporting caring and connected communities, and deepening engagement between our stores and clubs and their surrounding communities

Providing Access to Goods & Services in Our Communities | Contributing to Economic Vitality | Strengthening Community Resilience | Building More Inclusive & Engaged Communities

We serve communities through our core mission of helping people save money and live better: providing customers with convenient, omni-channel access to affordable and quality food, apparel, household items, and other products and services.

Walmart aims to provide convenient access to affordable food and products for all, whether that is through shopping in our stores or using our pickup and delivery services.

• Globally, more than 10,500 stores and clubs in 20 countries serve approximately 240 million customers per week. We offer pickup at more than 8,100 locations and delivery from approximately 7,000 locations.
• In the U.S., our stores and clubs are within 10 miles of approximately 90% of the population. In addition to our in-store shopping and pickup options, customers who cannot easily access store locations can take advantage of Walmart U.S. stores' standard grocery delivery services.

In the U.S., we also provide options for SNAP customers who, in addition to at all Walmart stores and participating Walmart online pickup and delivery locations, currently can use their benefits on Walmart.com in 49 states.

As well, Walmart is participating in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition’s WIC pilot program in Massachusetts and Washington, which brings online shopping to WIC participants and is designed to make it easier and more convenient for customers to order and pay for WIC-eligible items online using their electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card. While the pilot is currently running only in limited locations, its goal is to inform a pathway for national expansion to create greater WIC program efficiencies and improved access for WIC participants in the future.

Read more: Safer, Healthier Food & Other Products.

Through Walmart GoLocal, our white-label, delivery-as-a-service offering, Walmart enables businesses, from large enterprises to small locally-owned businesses, to expand customer and community access to their products through local delivery, particularly in suburban and rural areas. Building and scaling local delivery can be challenging, and Walmart GoLocal helps retailers access reliable, cost-efficient, same-day local delivery solutions backed by Walmart’s deep retail and logistics expertise. In 2023, Walmart GoLocal announced it had enabled more than 3.5 million deliveries in communities around the U.S.

Walmart provides pharmacy, optical services, and in-store health kiosks in thousands of locations, with a focus on providing in-person and virtual healthcare services to our local communities with transparent pricing, affordability, and convenience. Innovations include Walmart Insurance Services, a licensed insurance brokerage service, and Walmart Health Centers, which launched in 2019 and serve communities in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Illinois. In 2023 and 2024, Walmart plans to expand this footprint to more than 75 locations, opening centers in new states including Missouri and Arizona. The health centers focus on providing accessible, convenient primary care, labs, counseling, dental, hearing, and community health services in the communities we serve.

Walmart has 4,000 stores located in medically underserved areas as designated by the Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA). As a result, Walmart is in a unique position to advocate for and provide health and wellness services, particularly for those Americans in rural and underserved communities.

Walmart is rolling out specialized training in Health Equity to our Health and Wellness field associates, helping them to better understand and identify unique healthcare delivery issues in their communities. We also seek to increase the number of Health and Wellness providers in communities by offering our associates industry-focused education programs for pharmacy technicians and opticians, which includes an optician training program that will soon become available in all 50 states. Walmart also offers a pilot program in medical assistant certification and free pharmacy technician certification for eligible associates.

In 2022, we launched the Walmart Healthcare Research Institute to increase community access to healthcare research that may help lead to safer, higher quality, and more equitable healthcare. The Institute focuses on innovative interventions and medications that can make a difference in underrepresented communities, including rural residents.

Walmart also works to advance policies at the state and federal levels that can help to reduce health disparities and bridge the access gap for those who live in rural and medically underserved areas. For example, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and nurse practitioners play a critical role in preventive services, education, and healthcare delivery, particularly for those who live in rural and medically underserved areas. Too often, public policy restricts their ability to practice. Walmart advocates for the permanent expansion of these roles in vaccination, testing, treatment, and other practice areas.

Read more: Safer, Healthier Food & Other Products and Engagement in Public Policy

Walmart champions the financial well-being of customers, associates, and small businesses in our communities by providing access to affordable and convenient financial services.

Our financial services are designed with the underserved consumer in mind, and we help tens of millions of people manage their day-to-day financial needs and plan for their financial future. Walmart's everyday low price services include:

• Convenient ways to pay bills with money orders and electronic bill payment to 15,000+ billers, including the ability to use health benefit funds to pay for designated medical and critical-need expenses
• Check cashing for payroll, government assistance, and personal checks
• Low-fee money transfers to 200+ countries and territories
• Deposits and withdrawals to debit cards and popular online accounts like ONE
• Tax preparation services available at more than 2,600 Walmart stores 
• Installment lending solution available at the point of sale through Affirm

We believe retail can be a springboard for economic opportunity. By providing quality jobs, training and career paths, Walmart aims to meet our customers' expectations while retaining great talent and contributing to local employment and workforce development.

We employ approximately 2.1 million associates in thousands of communities around the globe, offering a variety of career opportunities. Walmart also offers market-attractive wages and benefits, on-the-job coaching and training, opportunities to advance in a wide range of career paths (including retail management, pharmacy, and technology), and Walmart-paid formal education opportunities for part- and full-time hourly U.S. associates in stores and clubs. Our investments in frontline retail workers also create value beyond Walmart. Communities need good, low-barrier entry-level jobs at competitive wages to provide pathways for community members to acquire in-demand skills and knowledge in order to advance to higher wage, mid-level careers, enabling workforce development and helping to sustain local economies.

Read More: Human Capital: Good Jobs & Advancement for Associates.

By investing in our suppliers, Walmart aims not only to serve our customers but also to help support jobs and inclusive economic growth in local markets where we operate. Some examples include:

Walmart has a long history of supporting American products. According to data from our suppliers, in FY2023 nearly two-thirds of Walmart U.S.'s total product spending was on items made, grown or assembled in the United States. Through our America at Work initiative, we continue to invest in products that support the creation of American jobs. In FY2023, we accomplished our goal of investing an incremental $250 billion over our FY2013 purchases in products made, grown, or assembled in the United States before 2023.

Walmart committed in 2021 to an additional goal of investing an incremental $350 billion over our FY2021 purchases on products made, grown, or assembled in the United States over 10 years; this investment has the potential to support more than 750,000 new jobs⁵. As of the end of FY2023, we have increased U.S. receipts by a cumulative $47 billion toward that goal.

Walmart has sourced goods from India for more than 20 years, supporting local suppliers to build their capabilities and develop new product lines to meet international standards. In December 2020, Walmart announced it will seek to increase its exports of goods from India to $10 billion per year by 2027. As of the end of FY2023, Walmart has reached approximately $3.4 billion in exports from India.

Additionally, we work to build supplier capabilities in India through:

• Flipkart’s Samarth initiative, which helps micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) register for and succeed in online sales and which recently reached the milestone of positively impacting 1.5 million livelihoods across India 
• Walmart’s Vriddhi Supplier Development Program, launched in 2019, which aims to train and prepare 50,000 of India’s MSMEs to "Make in India." As of January 2023, 25,000 MSMEs had graduated from the program

We aim to use our scale to benefit suppliers and one way to do this is to buy directly from local suppliers. Ninety-two percent of our suppliers in Mexico are small- and medium- enterprises and over eighty percent of the merchandise sold in Central America is purchased from the region. Walmart Mexico also has specialized supplier development programs focused on small and medium enterprises, including Adopta Una PyMe ("Adopt a SME"), Una Mano Para Crecer ("A Helping Hand to Grow"), Tierra Fértil ("Fertile Soil"), and Pequeño Productor ("Small Farmer").

Since 2017, the Walmart Foundation has awarded grants totaling more than $86 million to benefit smallholders in India, Mexico, and Central America. These grants are expected to reach more than one million smallholder farmers, over 50% of whom are women. These grant programs aim to enhance farmer livelihoods and value chains, encourage the adoption of sustainable agriculture practices, unlock access to finance, grow formal market linkages, strengthen farmer producer organizations (FPOs), and empower women farmers in FPOs.

Learn more: Supplier Opportunity and People in Supply Chains.

Walmart contributes significantly to the tax base in thousands of communities in countries where we operate. In FY2023, Walmart paid more than $3.3 billion in corporate income-based taxes worldwide and our effective corporate income tax rate was 33.6%.

In addition to income-based taxes, Walmart is taxed directly, for example, through payroll, property and use taxes at the state, provincial, and local levels. These tax dollars provide revenue to fund services, projects, and programs such as fire, police, schools, libraries, and community health services.

As a retailer, Walmart reduces the administrative burden on national, state, provincial, and local governments by collecting sales and value-added taxes on their behalf in compliance with relevant laws and regulations. In the U.S., we publish the amount of sales tax we collect and remit in all 50 U.S. states through our location facts on our Corporate Site.

And as an employer, Walmart compensates approximately 2.1 million associates at our stores, clubs, warehouses, and offices worldwide. These jobs enable our associates to participate in the economic life of their communities and, in most jurisdictions, also generate tax revenue through income and social insurance taxes.

Throughout the U.S., we are increasing our commitment to communities through our remodel program. In FY2023, we invested more than $4.9 billion in store and club remodels in order to help improve, evolve, and refresh the store and shopping experience for customers and increase opportunities for local economic investments and jobs.

Through collaboration and philanthropic funding, we aim to build more resilient communities by supporting local causes, providing support for disaster preparation and response, and increasing community access to healthier food.

Walmart aims to support communities through our local giving and to be a force multiplier encouraging the engagement of associates and customers with local organizations and causes in ways that bring people together.

In 2022, Walmart launched Spark Good, a community engagement platform that brings together our local giving and engagement programs to empower customers and associates in supporting the causes that matter most to them. In creating Spark Good, Walmart incorporated feedback from our nonprofit partners, associates, and customers, who told us that they wanted more agency in selecting the organizations that they support through Walmart's programs.

Spark Good programs include our Walmart and Sam's Club facility grants; opportunities to use Walmart store and Sam's Club space for fundraising or raising awareness; associate engagement programs such as Volunteerism Always Pays (VAP) and the Associate Giving Program (AGP); options for customers to give back to the causes they care about through Round Up and Registry; and Walmart fundraising and matching campaigns (through which Walmart or the Walmart Foundation match associate and/or customer giving).

We expanded the paths through which Walmart customers can support local organizations, allowing for more organizations to benefit.

Spark Good Round Up allows customers to round up their purchase total and donate at checkout on Walmart.com and in the Walmart app to a public charity of their choice. Whereas most round up programs direct customer giving to a charitable partner determined by the retailer, Spark Good Round Up empowers customers to select a charity of their choice.

The Spark Good Registry gives customers the option to purchase and donate items to charitable organizations through Walmart.com. Like a wedding or baby registry, the Spark Good Registry allows verified nonprofits to create lists of needed products, including gift cards, and share the lists with their donors and Walmart customers through the Spark Good Registry. Walmart ships items purchased through a nonprofit’s registry directly to the nonprofit — reducing friction from setting up collection sites and retrieving donations.

Other ways we engage with our customers include our in-store fundraising campaigns: Fight Hunger. Spark Change. and Children's Miracle Network Hospitals (CMNH).

• Since 2014, Walmart and Feeding America have led an annual Fight Hunger. Spark Change. campaign to bring greater awareness of hunger in the U.S. and raise money for local Feeding America member food banks. Over the last five years, Walmart, Sam’s Club, participating suppliers, and customers have raised more than $114 million for Feeding America and its network of local food banks.
• For more than three decades, Walmart has been helping families in their communities live better by raising funds for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. In 2022, Walmart and Sam's Club associates, customers, and members in Canada and the United States raised more than $50 million, and since 1987, Walmart's CMNH campaign has raised and contributed more than $1 billion, according to CMNH.

Having a physical presence in thousands of communities through our Walmart stores and Sam's Clubs allows us to provide charitable organizations with space outside our facilities for their fundraising and awareness efforts. For example, The Salvation Army stationed their iconic red kettles in front of Walmart stores and Sam's Clubs, raising more than $34 million during the 2022 holiday season. In 2022, we piloted a new online tool that improves the process through which charities and local community organizations request the use of space in front of Walmart stores. The online tool can now be used to request space at every Walmart store and Neighborhood Market in the U.S.

Our Walmart and Sam's Club facilities aim to support those organizations that serve their local communities. Facility leaders can make in-kind donations to local organizations, as well as Spark Good local community grants, which range from $250-$5000, for U.S. nonprofit organizations through an open application process. In FY2023, Walmart awarded Spark Good local community grants totaling more than $45 million.³

We support the passion of Walmart associates to give back locally. Last year, we provided them with more choices by expanding the number of eligible organizations and lowering the barriers to participation in our Associate Giving Program (AGP) and Volunteerism Always Pays program (VAP).

• Walmart continues to match associates' commitment through periodic matching campaigns, and in November and December 2022, Walmart hosted the Season of Giving Back where we offered associate matching donations two to one, up to $2.5 million. Together, associates and Walmart supported more than 650 charities with over $4 million through Charities Aid Foundation America (CAFA), a donor advised fund.
• The redesigned VAP program now requires only one hour of associate volunteerism with a nonprofit to trigger a donation by Walmart, and the program also includes the ability for associates to set and track commitments for engaging in their community. In FY2023, more than 7,500 U.S. associates volunteered more than 180,000 hours through VAP, generating more than $1.7 million in Walmart donations.

In any given year, our stores, clubs, and their surrounding communities face risks related to natural disasters; extreme weather conditions; regional or global health crises; and other catastrophic events such as war, civil unrest, and acts of violence. Walmart's focus on supporting disaster preparedness and response in our communities around the world can be traced back to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which helped us realize the difference we can make for customers, associates, and communities in times of disaster. Since FY2019, Walmart, Sam’s Club and the Walmart Foundation have provided more than $105 million for disaster preparedness and response efforts supporting communities around the globe.

Walmart's Global Emergency Management team maintains a constant focus throughout the year on disaster planning and preparation, through risk assessments, business continuity planning, and training to sustain business resilience in the face of disaster events. The Walmart Foundation assists communities around our stores and clubs with building their own disaster preparedness capabilities through grants to organizations like the Information Technology Disaster Resource Center Inc., which mobilizes to provide communication and technology solutions that connect survivors and responders during and after a crisis.

When disasters occur, Walmart focuses its efforts on ensuring the safety and well-being of our associates, resuming operations swiftly and safely for the benefit of our customers, and supporting impacted communities. Through our Emergency Operations Center, we are able to mobilize our Walmart logistics and operations capabilities to maintain or resume operations at stores and clubs, move essential products and disaster-related supplies to affected areas, and activate community support strategies including donating essential products to community organizations, and using our parking lots for staging and events including water and meal giveaways, laundry access, and health checks.

In FY2023, our Emergency Operations Center, stores, clubs, distribution centers, and Walmart.org team worked to help communities respond to events including storms, flooding, violence, fires, and heat. Recent examples include:

• Hurricane Ian. After Hurricane Ian made landfall in late September 2022 in Florida as a Category 4 storm, hundreds of Walmart stores, clubs, and distribution centers in its path were affected, losing power and suffering damage from wind and water. Many of our customers, members, and associates saw significant damage to their homes and were left without utilities and water. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation donated more than $6 million in disaster relief funding and in-kind support and used our store and parking lot spaces to stage water and meal distributions, host laundry and shower trailers, and offer complimentary wellness and injury exams.
• Hurricane Fiona. Hurricane Fiona left much of Puerto Rico without electrical power in September 2022, creating a need for mobile generators to power critical services. Walmart sourced generators and partnered with UPS to ship them to the Hispanic Federation's team on the ground in Puerto Rico. The donated generators were distributed to individuals and families with medical needs and were used to power community-based relief kitchens. Walmart also worked to get stores and clubs operating and the Walmart Foundation provided $850,000 in support to organizations helping with the Hurricane Fiona recovery in Puerto Rico and Canada.
• Uvalde school shooting. In the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas in May 2022, Walmart mobilized to help support the community's immediate and longer-term recovery by donating space inside our Uvalde Supercenter for a new clinic where a local social services organization could provide crisis support, mental health services, or other human services needs. Walmart also provided the organization with a $250,000 grant supporting comprehensive mental health services for the Uvalde community.
• Flooding in Kentucky. Heavy rain, flash flooding, and rising river floodwaters overwhelmed communities in eastern Kentucky in July 2022, affecting hundreds of Walmart associates and thousands of community members. Walmart, Sam’s Club, and the Walmart Foundation committed $750,000 in water, food, and funding to organizations providing relief, while simultaneously working to make essential resources like water, food, vaccinations, showers, and laundry available in our parking lots. Walmart drivers deployed our Mobile Relief Kitchen to provide hot meals to the community. Mobile showers were made available, and community members could do their laundry thanks to Procter & Gamble’s Tide Loads of Hope. Walmart also offered vaccination events in four locations, as floods can increase risks of tetanus and hepatitis.
• Flooding in India. When flooding devastated communities in Assam, India in the summer of 2022, the Walmart Foundation (through the Walmart Foundation Disaster Relief Fund, a donor advised fund) and the Flipkart Foundation together allocated $250,000 toward Doctors For You to supply relief kits with essential food items, medicines, and hygiene-care products and offer healthcare and psychological support to the affected population. As floods continued in several parts of India, under the initiative of the Flipkart Foundation, Flipkart also activated customer and associate giving campaigns to raise funds to provide additional critical medical supplies and essential relief materials for flood relief efforts in the country.

Read more: Disaster Preparedness & Response.

Access to nutritious food is vital to the health and well-being of a community. The primary way we address food insecurity in our communities is by providing access to affordable, nutritious food in thousands of communities around the world through our stores, clubs, and pickup and delivery services. In addition, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have long committed to addressing food and nutrition security as part of the health and well-being of the communities we serve.

• Food donations. Our U.S. food donation program started in 2006 through the efforts of a single Sam's Club. Since then, we have provided more than 7.5 billion pounds of food from our network of stores, clubs, and distribution centers to Feeding America food banks. In FY2023 alone, stores, clubs, and distribution centers in the U.S. donated more than 665 million pounds of food,⁴ 57% of which were fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and meats. Walmart is proud that 93% of our U.S. stores and clubs participated in our food donation program to support their local communities in FY2023. Globally, we donated more than 760 million pounds of food in FY2023.
• Charitable meal system. We work with organizations across the U.S. to strengthen the capacity of the charitable meal system and accelerate innovations to recover and distribute food, particularly fresh food. For example, in FY2023 Walmart and the Walmart Foundation contributed more than $14 million in grants to support Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks in the U.S. Our recent grant to Feeding America focused on increasing access to SNAP, improving food sourcing capacity within the network with a particular focus on better serving rural and/or communities of color, building the expertise of food bank leaders, and advancing Order Ahead (an online grocery ordering system that allows a discreet and convenient click-and-collect model for those facing food insecurity).
• Federal nutrition access. The Walmart Foundation has supported nonprofit organizations like Benefits Data Trust, which works to connect people with essential services like SNAP and WIC. Further, the Walmart Foundation is a founding investor in Code for America’s Integrated Benefits initiative, which works to transform the nutrition safety net nationwide by addressing barriers to enrollment, usage, and retention in social safety net programs like SNAP and WIC.

• Reaching underserved populations. The Walmart Foundation supports efforts to unlock resources for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)-led organizations and entrepreneurs in geographic areas with limited access to food, often characterized as food deserts or swamps. To support community-driven food access solutions at scale, Walmart is also focused on increasing access to public and private capital and building capacity for organizations and entrepreneurs. The Walmart Foundation invested $5 million in the American Heart Association’s Bernard J. Tyson’s Impact Fund to back community-based organizations and entrepreneurs in Atlanta and Chicago who are working to increase access to affordable and healthier food in communities of color. According to the American Heart Association, the food entrepreneurs and organizations who received investments from the Fund have reached over 460,000 individuals, created 71 healthy food access points, and grown over 186,000 pounds of fresh food within low-income and food insecure communities.

• Building capacity of organizations. In 2020, the Walmart Foundation launched the Healthy Food Community of Practice (HFCOP) as a space for connection, learning, resource sharing and action for organizations focused on improving healthier food access and consumption, particularly for people who face systemic barriers. Funded by the Walmart Foundation, the Community is facilitated by Share Our Strength through its subsidiary Community Wealth Partners and now comprises nearly 50 organizations across the U.S.

  Read more about this initiative: HFCOP

• Culturally relevant nutrition education. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are committed to advancing culturally relevant and evidence-backed nutrition content and experiences to empower all consumers and communities to make healthy choices. For example, in May 2022, the Walmart Foundation awarded nearly $1.5 million in a grant to Sesame Workshop to develop and disseminate new content to improve the nutritional and kitchen literacy (the ability to access and understand information about food) of families with young children, emphasizing BIPOC and families facing food insecurity. Another 2022 grant, to FoodCorps, supports providing more than 240,000 children with culturally relevant, hands-on food education and increased exposure to more nourishing foods in schools and at home.
• Nutrition and health outcomes. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are committed to addressing food and nutrition security to improve health outcomes. Cardiometabolic health issues, such as diabetes, as well as maternal and infant health, are key examples of disparate health outcomes between predominantly Black and White communities. The Walmart Foundation continues to invest in research and interventions that aim to improve maternal and infant health and cardiometabolic health outcomes through nutrition programming, with a particular focus on improving health outcomes in Black communities.

Read more: Safer, Healthier Food & Other Products.

Walmart and the Walmart Foundation aim to build community resilience by advancing equity in our society, supporting initiatives that unite people, and encouraging community engagement.

As part of Walmart’s larger efforts to address the drivers of systemic racism in society and accelerate change, in June 2020 Walmart and the Walmart Foundation committed $100 million over five years to create the Center for Racial Equity. Since then, the CRE has invested $58 million to complement and extend the societal impact of Walmart's business initiatives to advance racial equity within four focus areas: Education, Finance, Health, and Criminal Justice, with a focus on building more equitable outcomes for the Black and African American community.

Read more: Equity & Inclusion at Walmart & Beyond

Hundreds of millions of Walmart customers and more than two million associates live and work in communities surrounding Walmart stores and clubs. We believe that people can live better in stronger, more connected communities where they feel they belong, can depend on and work with one another, and can meaningfully contribute.

Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have provided $5 million in funding throughout FY2023 to organizations that are sharing stories of cooperation, building skills to strengthen trust in communities, and creating opportunities for people to come together:

• Sharing stories: Each day, Americans are working together and bridging divides in their local communities in order to create greater understanding and cooperation. We support initiatives that amplify stories and messengers who are sharing narratives of cooperation and depolarization in the U.S., including a $1.25 million grant toward StoryCorps' One Small Step Cities Program.
• Skill building: We invest in organizations providing opportunities and training for skill building on the topic of more effectively building trust in communities. Walmart recently announced a $750K grant to support Team Up, an initiative through Interfaith America, Habitat for Humanity, the YMCA, and Catholic Charities, which are partnering to equip leaders with skills and resources — while scaling up their own organizations' efforts — to bridge divides in communities across the U.S.
• Coming together in collective settings: We believe in the power of in-person interaction to foster conversation across diverse communities. Walmart supports the development of shared spaces that provide the opportunity for those interactions through initiatives like the Trust for Public Land's “On Common Ground” strategy. The Walmart Foundation provided more than $1 million to support On Common Ground's research and advocacy, which aims to leverage the community programs embedded within America’s city parks as platforms for community relationships.

Walmart aims to be an active and engaged member in the communities our stores and clubs serve. More than 1,000 Walmart U.S. stores have appointed Community Champions to improve engagement between store and community. With the help of our Community Relations team, store leaders and Community Champions build relationships with local government officials, nonprofits, and civic partners to understand and engage with the unique profile of their communities. For example, during Teacher Appreciation Week in May 2023, stores were encouraged to connect with local schools to show support for educational providers through activities like using Walmart's in-kind donation program to provide school supplies to local educators and distributing thank you cards from Walmart associates to teachers. At Sam's Clubs across the U.S. in both October 2022 and April 2023, associates participated in a Day of Service, bringing together associates and members to volunteer at local nonprofits and organizations.

Store and club remodels can also be catalysts for Walmart to deepen its engagement with and support of local communities. Stores and clubs proactively plan their community engagement during the remodel and relaunch to help tell the story of their community impact. Opportunities for engagement include:

• Awarding Local Community Grants to community organizations and nonprofits as part of the store or club re-grand opening celebration
• Celebration of local community organizations and nonprofits that have received grants or support from Walmart and the Walmart Foundation
• Service by associates volunteering through the VAP program, which results in both volunteer hours and charitable contributions by Walmart to local organizations
• Highlighting the stories of associates and local suppliers who live and work in the community

The Walmart Community Mural Program also plays an important part in each remodeled store’s transformation and represents a celebration of the community where it is located. Through the Program, store leaders identify community diversity and cultural references that they would like to feature in the mural, and the Community Relations team works with its partners to engage artists to bring those ideas to life in a unique, original artwork. These murals aim to illuminate, educate, and spark connection and conversation among customers and associates who pass by them. More than 450 murals were completed in Walmart stores across the U.S. in FY2023.

Walmart's global headquarters in Northwest Arkansas supports our operations in 20 countries. We help strengthen the resilience of the region through grants and sponsorships focused on increasing access to healthier food for all; building a culture of belonging; and supporting economic opportunity.

In FY2023, Walmart.org awarded more than $16 million in grants to Northwest Arkansas community organizations and programs. Recent grants support programs like The University of Arkansas Medical Sciences community of practice, focused on developing a cohesive community of practitioners who address food insecurity in the region, and the Bentonville Public Library, where a $1.5 million grant by the Walmart Foundation will help to expand services and community space at that longstanding public institution, providing the local community with space and resources for education, innovation, and community gatherings.

To learn more about these efforts, see our Local Community Support page.

• Walmart’s ability to serve communities and strengthen community resilience depends on collaboration with many stakeholders, whose priorities and level of engagement may vary or change over time.
• Navigating the diverse and sometimes divergent perspectives of our customers and other stakeholders can lead to the alienation of one or more stakeholder groups.
• Economic factors (e.g., inflation, supply chain disruption) can also strain community resources relative to needs.
• Changes in government regulation or policy at local, state, and even national levels can enable or adversely affect community initiatives.
• While disaster management is one of the ways Walmart serves communities, disasters can also compromise our ability to operate our business and serve communities in other ways.
• Chronic underperformance of an individual store or club may compromise our ability to serve the local community and in some cases may even cause us to close a facility.

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