Belonging
Everyone Included
At Walmart, our vision is “everyone included.” We strive to bring our core value of ‘Respect the Individual’ to life every day, and we believe fostering a culture where everyone belongs is essential —for associates and for driving business success. When associates feel valued for who they are, engagement soars and associates are empowered to better serve our customers and members while delivering innovative solutions for our business.
"Together, we’re creating opportunities for our associates, shoppers, suppliers and the communities we serve so we can be a Walmart for everyone."
Donna Morris, Chief People Officer, Walmart
Shared Value Approach
At Walmart, we believe in shared value – that doing good for people and communities is good for business. When we help customers, associates, suppliers and communities thrive, it also strengthens our company.
That’s why we focus on things like delivering great value to shoppers, creating jobs and opportunities, supporting local communities and making our business and supply chains more sustainable. By doing this, we build trust, find new ways to grow, keep costs down, and make sure our business stays strong for the future.
Belonging for Associates, Business and Communities
Learn more about how we’re fostering belonging with our associates, through our business and in the communities we serve.
Fostering Belonging for Our Associates
We want our associates around the world to feel seen for their unique contributions, supported in their daily work and connected to their coworkers.
We believe talent is widely distributed, but opportunity is not, so we remove unnecessary barriers to joining and advancing in our company. Our policies, practices, and programs promote fairness and the same treatment for all associates. Everyone at Walmart has access to opportunities for development and advancement. We bring this to life through our People strategy by investing in associate growth, well-being and digital enablement in all our markets.
We also transparently report on our workforce data and have associate resource groups open to all associates to further engagement, networking, connection and a sense of community.
Tracking Our Belonging Progress
We consistently look for ways to listen to and connect with our associates. Each market where we operate measures Belonging through associate feedback in our annual engagement survey. Leaders use this feedback to continually foster an environment where everyone feels seen, supported and connected. More than two-thirds of our associates responding to our FY2025 Associate Engagement Survey expressed that they feel like they belong at Walmart.
Around the world, we provide multiple channels for associate feedback, including regular listening sessions with field and office associates across our markets.
Approximately 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart or Sam’s Club. As the largest private employer in the U.S., our associates and customers reflect the makeup of all of America – and that extends to the 18 other countries where we operate. We remain committed to reporting key data about our workforce to enhance transparency.
Story Highlights:
Building Associate Community
When associates feel connected to their coworkers, they feel like they belong. Around the world, associates are bringing our culture to life—such as Massmart’s Project Grow initiative, which started as a community garden and has expanded into bonding opportunities for associates across South Africa.
These groups are open to all campus-based associates, inviting people of all backgrounds to connect with each other and provide key insights to drive our business, with groups in the U.S., Canada, and Flipkart. The first ARG launched in 2005 and we’ve added more groups over the years based on associate feedback. For example, we created the FAVOR (work + faith) and SERVES (veteran and military family) ARGs in 2019, and an Accessibility Center of Excellence in 2021. We also have a Black and African American Resource Group (BAARG) and Women’s Resource Council (WRC), among others.
Associates on the President’s Belonging Council and Officer caucuses provide guidance to senior leaders on fostering belonging.
We celebrate cultural events such as Veterans Day and Martin Luther King Day, support mentorship and development circles and encourage associates to participate in volunteerism through our Spark Good platform and around the world.
Connection Across Language
Walmart recently launched a translator tool for its 1.6 million U.S. associates with 44 languages. The tool can be used to translate conversations with associates, customers and members—ensuring everyone feels understood and enhancing the working and shopping experience.
Another example is in Guatemala, where many shoppers speak Mayan language variations, Walmart has added five Mayan languages to self-payment services in select stores, allowing customers to complete transactions in their native language.
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Fostering Belonging in Our Business
We want every customer and member to feel welcome when they shop with us, whether in-store, in-club or online. By providing products our customers and members love and omnichannel experiences that let people shop when and how they want, we’re helping everyone feel like they belong and strengthening our business.
Small businesses employ nearly half the entire American workforce and represent 43.5% of America’s GDP. Walmart works with vendors of all sizes to offer the products and services that help customers save money and live better – both in the U.S. and around the world. This approach strengthens our product assortment, supply chain resilience, and local communities.
In the U.S.
- U.S. Grow with Us Program: Complements our U.S. manufacturing focus by working with a wide range of businesses from communities across the country. Provides businesses with access to education, supplier finance programs, and discovery opportunities to help them grow.
Around the World
Globally, our markets invest in initiatives important to their local communities:
- Walmart Growth Summits: Provides opportunities for local entrepreneurs in our markets to connect with Walmart, including in India, Mexico, Chile, and Africa.
- Walmart de México Foundation’s Pequeño Productor program: Provides commercial and agricultural training for small producers and farmers. The program has helped participating agribusinesses increase their income up to 90% in their first year of sales and impacted more than 2,000 communities.
- India’s Flipkart Samarth Program: Positively impacted 1.8 million livelihoods, preserved over 100 traditional art forms, and fostered the growth of thousands of marketplace sellers on its platform
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Accessible Shopping Experiences
We’re dedicated to creating inclusive shopping experiences in stores, clubs and online through associate training and collaboration with other retailers, accessibility experts and consumer feedback.
After piloting sensory-friendly hours in Chile, the program has expanded to the U.S., Mexico, Central America and Canada. This effort creates a less stimulating environment for a couple hours by changing the TV walls to a static image, turning off the radio and lowering the lights where possible.
All Walmart U.S. stores provide Caroline’s Carts to help caregivers of customers with disabilities navigate the store with a single cart. A Caroline Cart looks like a typical shopping cart but includes a large seat with a five-point harness that faces the person pushing the cart, alleviating the need for customers to push both a shopping cart and wheelchair in the store.
In 2024, we launched free navigation services for blind and low-vision customers in our stores and online through Aira. The service is a mobile application that connects members of the blind and low-vision community with sighted interpreters, who communicate visual information in real time. Using remote access to a phone camera or piece of wearable tech, Aira interpreters act as eyes inside the store.
Adaptive Products
At Adaptive at Walmart, customers can find a curated assortment of products for everyone and every need, from the first-to-market Wonder Nation adaptive backpack to mobility aids and tactile clothing. Similarly, Chile’s Lider.cl offers 3,000 products for people with disabilities or reduced mobility, ensuring customers can find products that fit their unique needs.
Engaging Shoppers in Moments that Matter
We carefully curate products that help customers and members celebrate their heritage and the moments that matter most, from Diwali to Christmas and Lunar New Year.
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Fostering Belonging in Our Communities
We seek to foster connection in the communities we serve, in addition to supporting communities through our everyday low prices, jobs, local sourcing and taxes.
Spark Good
Spark Good strengthens local communities by empowering associates and customers to support causes that matter most to them through an online platform that inspires a culture of local giving. Over 50,000 local organizations in the U.S. have registered to be a part of Spark Good. Spark Good includes programs like localized grants to community organizations, sharing Walmart’s space outside of the store with local organizations, facilitating associate giving and volunteerism, and providing the ability for customers to purchase products off nonprofit registries or round up purchases while shopping on Walmart.com for their favorite nonprofit. In FY25, our U.S. associates reported more than 295,000 volunteer hours through Spark Good.
Supporting U.S. Veterans
At Walmart, we take immense pride in our history of veteran leadership, starting with our founder, Sam Walton, who served in the U.S. Army during World War II. We are committed to serving veterans and military spouses during their service and beyond.
In FY2025, we hired over 29,000 veterans and over 17,000 military spouses. We also offer a variety of benefits to support veterans’ well-being.
We invest in veteran-owned businesses, such as Operation Good Boy and Busy Baby.
We support community initiatives such as Wreaths Across America and Seats for Soldiers.
Supporting Community Well-Being
More than 4,000 of our U.S. stores are in medical professional shortage areas, so Walmart often serves as the first stop for health care in communities.
In 2025, we’re expanding delivery offerings to include pharmacy in 49 U.S. states, helping customers live better through convenient options that work for them.
We’ve provided free health screenings for customers since 2014 through Wellness Days, including free access to glucose, cholesterol, BMI and blood pressures screenings, wellness resources, and affordable immunizations.
Around the world, we’re investing in healthy communities through initiatives such as India’s Flipkart Waves of Change – Ekartavya and pharmacy delivery in Mexico.
Battling Food Insecurity Around the World
We want the communities where we operate to thrive. In addition to providing access to nutritious food through our business, we address food insecurity in the communities we serve.
Walmart’s Fight Hunger, Spark Change has raised more than $200 million and helped secure more than 2 billion meals for people facing hunger in the U.S., and almost 23 million meals in Canada in FY25.
Alongside the Shanghai Oasis Public Service Development Center, Walmart China has donated an equivalent of more than 8.9 million meals to the communities we serve and engaged hundreds of associate volunteers.
The Walmart Mexico Foundation provided food for more than 23,000 people in Acapulco following Hurricane John.
Caring & Connected Communities
In many communities, Walmart is a gathering place where families and neighbors shop and spend time with one another. We believe people live better in communities where they feel they belong and can depend on each other.
In the U.S.
- Community Champions Programs: Brings belonging to life with our customers and members during cultural celebrations throughout the year, including Native American Heritage Month, Pride, military appreciation, Hispanic Heritage Month, and more.
- Philanthropy: Walmart.org— As part of a grant made to the Aspen Institute’s program, Weave: The Social Fabric Project, the Walmart Foundation supported programming that connects, trains and invests in local leaders and organizations committed to building trust, bridging and belonging.
Around the World
Globally, our markets invest in initiatives important to their local communities:
- Walmart Canada: Recently reached a new giving milestone of $750 million for local communities.
- Walmart China: Supports the Growing Together with Walmart project which focuses on healthy childhood growth and anti-sexual-assault education in local communities.
- Walmart Chile: Celebrated Chile’s Fiestas Patrias with food, games, and traditional dance.
Completing Our Center for Racial Equity Commitment
In 2020, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation launched the Center for Racial Equity with a five-year, $100 million commitment to help advance equity across the U.S., with a mandate to address root causes of gaps in outcomes experienced by Black and African American people in ways that uplift all communities. The Center fulfilled its commitment in June 2025.
Over the past five years, we’ve partnered with incredible nonprofit organizations to support programs that have opened pathways, removed barriers, and sparked meaningful change, with a focus on:
With over 150 grants awarded and thousands of lives touched, the Center’s work has helped shape stronger communities and deepen Walmart.org’s understanding of how strategic philanthropy, partnerships, and shared learning can drive impact. In 2024, we began transitioning best practices from this work into Walmart.org’s broader philanthropic portfolio.
As we complete the five-year commitment, we remain committed to carrying forward the insights and relationships shaped through this work as we continue to invest in stronger communities. As we complete the five-year commitment, we will carry forward the insights and relationships shaped through this work, continuing to invest in stronger communities and seeking to deepen our impact through all we do.
Story Highlights:
Discover past reports, insights, and stories that highlight our ongoing commitment to belonging.
Learn more about how we support associates, paths to opportunity, supplier opportunity, and serving communities in our ESG Report.
