Community comes first

Discount Store News, Oct, 1999

Wal-Mart believes that each of its discount stores, Sam's Club, supercenters and distribution centers should contribute to the wellbeing of the local community.

With more than 3,000 locations distributing nearly $128 million last year to local organizations, Wal-Mart's community involvement program touches millions of lives, a fact born out by the 1999 Cone-Roper Cause Related Trends survey of Americans, which recognized Wal-Mart as a leader in social responsibility.

Through the Wal-Mart Foundation, the umbrella for the company's philanthropic efforts, Wal-Mart divides its community service work into the areas of education, environment, children, the economy and neighbors. Some of the programs affect organizations on a national scale, such as Wal-Mart's companywide support of the United Way and its corporate sponsorship of the Children's Miracle Network, for which it raised more than $27 million in 1998, making Wal-Mart the CMN's largest corporate sponsor.

But the majority of the company's initiatives are highly localized--a $500 check toward supplies to a Teacher of the Year in Plano, Texas; a $500 check to the South Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, whose membership produced this year's Sam Walton Business Leader Award winner; a matching grant to a non-profit choir in Milford, Del., that holds benefits concerts to raise money for low-income families.

There are many programs that involve no fundraising at all: the free eye exams given at Wal-Mart Vision Centers to underprivileged children; the more than 40 homes built in 1997 and 1998 by Wal-Mart associates through Habitat for Humanity; the associates who donated their time helping the Mid-Iowa Community Action organization move into a new building in Iowa Falls.

Wal-Mart believes in grass-roots activism and encourages its associates to take the initiative. The company's nationally recognized Code Adam program, which issues a special alert over a store's public address system when a customer reports a missing child, was the brainchild of Bill Burns, the loss prevention supervisor for District 186.

After reading an article about an attempted abduction at a local shopping mall, Burns worked with Dawn Lane, the safety team leader of store #1655 in Crawsfordsville, Ind., to propose a companywide system to protect children who stray from their parents while in a store. Within 10 minutes, if the child is not found or if the child is seen accompanied by someone other than a parent or guardian, store personnel notify the local police department.

In 1993, the procedure prevented the attempted abduction of a 3-year-old girl from a Wal-Mart store in Indiana. The abductor, who had a prior record of child abduction, was arrested and later convicted.

In terms of fundraising, Wal-Mart also emphasizes local action. Consequently, 97% of funding initiatives are directed by associates at individual stores, clubs and distribution centers to benefit their own communities. The majority of Wal-Mart's community involvement programs require that associates assist community nonprofit organizations by helping raise funds. When Wal-Mart does fund national or regional causes, it requires that funds stay in the local community where they are raised.

The company places a heavy emphasis on educational programs and last year distributed $8 million in scholarships. Each store or club awards a local Teacher of the Year, for example. Wal-Mart sponsors five of its own scholarship programs and contributes to many others.

The Competitive Edge Scholarship Fund pays $5,000 per year toward a four-year college education. The program is funded through sales of Sam's American Choice food and vendor donations. During the 1998-99 school year, 257 students at 140 colleges were attending on Competitive Edge scholarships. The program has awarded more than 1,400 scholarships since it was founded by Sam Walton in 1992.

The Sam Walton Community Scholarship Program allows 2,300 stores to award one $1,000 scholarship to cover a local high school student's first-year tuition, books or on-campus room and board. The Walton Foundation Scholarship provides four-year scholarships worth $6,000 to 100 college-bound high school seniors whose parents are full-time Wal-Mart associates. The Wal-Mart Associate Scholarship provides a $1,000 scholarship offered to high school seniors who work for the company as well as associates' children who are ineligible for the Walton Foundation Scholarship. The Distribution Center Scholarship program gives two four-year scholarships worth $2,500 to DC associates who wish to pursue higher education.

As the nation's largest employer of Hispanics and African-Americans, Wal-Mart also works with national organizations to support scholarship endeavors. They include The College Fund/UNCF ($1 million contributed over the past five years); the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund (a $100,000 commitment over four years); the League of United Latin American Citizens (a $10,000 per year) and the University of Texas Pan American (donation of a multi-million dollar building, sponsorships of a retail center and scholarships).