Serving Others
Health
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Walmart moved quickly to help protect the health of our associates. We added new capabilities to better serve customers and members safely in our stores and clubs, including expanded pickup and delivery options globally. We added sneeze guards, provided personal protective equipment and added signage to promote social distancing. We also opened COVID testing sites at many of our stores in the U.S. To address immediate needs around food security, we donated more than 625 million pounds of food and provided over $55 million in grants for hunger relief through the Walmart Foundation. While India was under strict national lockdown due to COVID, hundreds of PhonePe employees worked together to launch the "I for India" donation campaign to help raise money for the PM CARES Fund containment and relief efforts. The month-long national campaign helped raise more than $6 million from 1.6 million donors. Now we’re supporting efforts to vaccinate people in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Financial
The global health crisis quickly produced financial hardship for many people and businesses during fiscal year 2021. The company stepped up to offer employment opportunities for hundreds of thousands of workers who needed a job and these new associates helped support the explosive growth we saw in eCommerce. Globally, we have helped small businesses by buying their goods, building an expanded marketplace for sellers and serving as a supplier for family-owned restaurants and others through Sam’s Club. COVID-related lockdowns and social distancing needs accelerated a shift to the use of digital payments. Post-lockdown, the team at PhonePe resumed their hard work to digitize kiranas and small businesses across India. We also launched PhonePe ATM, a service that allows small retail shops to double as neighborhood ATM centers. PhonePe added 16 million merchants to our digital payments network, enabling access and inclusion for hundreds of millions of Indians, including more than 275 million current lifetime registered users, right from their phones.
Social and political
Other events of 2020, including the tragic killing of George Floyd and others, provided a moment for us to reflect on our commitment to racial equity. We’re finding ways to leverage our influence to help shape the systems and create more equity. To drive change inside and outside our company, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation committed $100 million over five years to create a new center to address systemic racism in society and accelerate change. A group of four teams of Walmart associates were created to help address the root causes of racial disparities within the societal systems of finance, education, criminal justice and health care through business by identifying the natural overlaps between Walmart capabilities and opportunities to advance racial equity at scale. Internally, we’ll continue to improve our people practices with a focus on hiring and developing our associates and identifying opportunities to further enhance diversity across all levels of the company. In addition, we launched the RACE Ahead (Raising Authentic Conversations on Equity) series that seeks to create a safe space for transparent, relevant and solutions-oriented conversations that are respectful and inclusive of all perspectives.
commited
$100 million
over five years
to address
systemic racism