Community : Walmart 2015 GRR

Disaster response and preparedness

Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have played an increasing role in disaster relief, ever since Hurricane Katrina, the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. At that time, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation provided 1,500 truckloads of merchandise, more than 100,000 meals and guaranteed jobs for our displaced workers. Since then, we’ve contributed more than $43 million in cash donations in response to events such as typhoons in Mexico and the Philippines, tsunamis in Asia, floods in the U.K. and Canada, tornadoes in the U.S., Africa’s Ebola epidemic and many other tragedies.

We also invest in efforts to improve disaster preparedness in communities. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation work together in complementary ways to contribute business and philanthropic assets to the field, including logistics and operations expertise, use of physical assets such as buildings and trucks, and cash and in-kind donations.

Disaster response

Aspiration

Support local communities following disasters by leveraging retail presence, logistics and operations to provide life-saving and life-sustaining items.

Over the past 10 years, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have provided more than $43 million in cash to various countries burdened by disasters.

Responding to tornado outbreak in central and southern U.S.

Over a span of just 48 hours in late April 2014, there was an outbreak of more than 100 tornadoes across the central and southern U.S., claiming 35 lives. Sixteen of those were caused when an EF4 tornado touched down in the towns of Vilonia and Mayflower in central Arkansas on the evening of April 27.

Walmart associates immediately took action by volunteering and donating supplies to first responders. Within hours, our stores in nearby Conway, Beebe and Maumelle had donated flashlights, batteries, tarps, snacks and more to help with search and rescue efforts. Kevin Stephens, our store manager in Conway, loaded his personal truck with water and supplies to take to the devastated areas the following morning, and several other associates followed his lead until Walmart trucks arrived later that day with bottled water.

In the days to follow, 18 Walmart stores and offices across northwest Arkansas and neighboring southwest Missouri donated more than 2,500 items, ranging from small appliances to clothes, which a Walmart truck delivered to the Faulkner County Disaster Relief Center.

Challenges: Disaster relief

Technology has advanced to the point where it can help predict some disasters, but not all of them — and not the devastation they can leave behind. Working with a large network of agencies, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are investing in technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of disaster response across the industry.

Disaster preparedness

Aspiration

Strengthen community preparedness and the ability to recover from disaster.

Over the past 10 years, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have invested more than $7.2 million in community resiliency. In FY2015, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation invested more than $1.5 million to: strengthen technological infrastructure for disaster response and resiliency, build capacity to facilitate skills-based volunteerism during disasters and convene leaders in disaster relief to share best practices.

R!SE Project Forum: Fostering collaboration and best practice sharing

In September 2014, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation co-hosted a two-day United Nations global project forum on disaster resiliency at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation continue to search for opportunities to share best practices to help communities build resiliency. From that meeting, multiple work streams were identified and are in the process of being developed around supporting community resilience campaigns and to identify key challenges.

Making philanthropic investments in preparedness

Team Rubicon: Developing organizational curriculum and response modules

Walmart is funding a project with Team Rubicon (TR) — an organization that rapidly deploys military veterans along with first responders as emergency response teams — to develop a curriculum for how companies can use skills-based volunteerism in disaster preparedness and response. This funding also allows TR to create internal modules for advanced disaster relief that include leadership, culture, history, community cost recovery, technology systems and emergency management position cross-training.

DisasterRecovery360: Transforming the way people respond to disaster relief

According to United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), from 2000 to 2012, nearly 2.9 billion people (more than 40 percent of the world’s population) were affected by a disaster. Unfortunately, research suggests that 50 percent of physical goods donated during disasters over the past 25 years have ended up in landfills. Unsolicited donations can actually hinder relief efforts by clogging critical supply routes and diverting needed staff and financial resources.

That’s why Walmart made a grant to Good360 in 2014 to support the development of DisasterRecovery360, a platform that essentially crowd-sources funding in the wake of disasters — and directs it to specific needs outlined by recovery agencies. The platform will be designed to also track and report the impact of donations.

Challenges: Disaster preparedness

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), research suggests that a $1 investment in preparedness saves $4 on relief expenditures; as a result, we believe the world needs to invest more in preparedness. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are working with a broad coalition to engage more people and increase financial resources in preparedness initiatives, including encouraging private- and public-sector partnerships to proactively equip communities before a disaster strikes.