Social
Walmart helps customers save money and live better by providing low prices on a broad assortment of food, apparel and general merchandise in 27 countries worldwide. Our philanthropic mission is derived from that same philosophy of helping people live better. We’ve designed giving programs to meet specific social needs, and we work through our stores and associates to make positive change in the communities we serve.
Emergency preparedness and disaster relief
Helping communities is what we do every day. While our global security efforts have positioned Walmart as a leader in disaster relief – leveraging resources and expertise to respond to communities in times of tremendous crisis – emergency preparedness remains a major focus. Preparedness (and mitigation efforts) is essential as today’s world continues to face extreme weather and a diverse risk landscape. Being prepared for a natural or man-made disaster is the first step to resiliency.
Focused on resiliency
Focused on building disaster resiliency around the world, Walmart collaborated with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2013. The purpose of this initiative is to leverage our global company’s best practices during disasters to help build community resiliency worldwide.
In September, Walmart U.S. took a major role during National Preparedness Month. More than 470 of our facilities in high-risk areas across the country hosted emergency preparedness expos, which brought emergency management experts and other important public and private organizations into our stores and clubs to establish awareness with the customers we serve. These and other efforts will lead to more resilient and better-prepared communities before disaster strikes.
Over the past five years, Walmart has collaborated with the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Coastal Guardians Outreach (CGO), a nonprofit organization that received a grant from the state of Texas to produce the Official Texas Hurricane Guide. Walmart has transported more than 3.5 million Texas Hurricane guides to stores in that state. This program helps our customers and other citizens in Texas increase their preparedness for hurricanes.
In addition, in 2013, Walmart utilized in-store broadcast technology in 555 of its U.S. stores to take a proactive approach to spreading emergency preparedness messaging:
- Hosted four general emergency preparedness public service announcements (PSAs), with more than 114 million views by customers 18 and older
- Worked with the Ad Council to air the “Be A Hero” PSA, developed by ESPN and seen by 20 million customers, ages 18 and older
- Aired Walmart Storm Preparedness PSAs to an audience of 38.7 million customers, ages 18 and older
- Aired The Safe America Foundation’s “Text First, Talk Second” PSA, which generated 55.6 million views, ages 18 and older
- Showcased the Safe America Foundation’s PSA, featuring Arkansas First Lady Ginger Beebe, in six stores, generating 399,000 views, ages 18 and older, over a period of 53 days
We’ve continued to illustrate the difference we can make by leveraging our size and scale. The Emergency Management Department, through the work coordinated by our Emergency Operations Center, the Walmart Foundation and our other key business areas, come together in times of crisis, and we utilize our resources to respond to disasters around the world. The above illustrates our disaster relief involvement for the past five years alone.