I made a mistake and pressed SAVE for this post rather than PUBLISH.
This last post was very challenging to write because I felt that I had absolutely run out of examples of non-profit sector’s affect on my life. However, after thinking long and hard I began googling stores that I frequent to find out whether they were affiliated with non-profits and in what way.
The first company that I researched is Wal-Mart. I found that Wal-Mart has a nonprofit organization called “The Walmart Foundation”. Its purpose is to provide opportunities to improve peoples’ lives. The foundation focuses on aiding initiatives to create opportunities in the areas of workforce development, education, environmental sustainability, health and wellness. The Foundation’s website has a list of its contributions to other civil society organizations. Not surprisingly, the donations are very large sums of money. For example it donated $5 Million dollars to YouthBuild USA and over $1 Million to other organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club of America, American Cancer Society and other civil society organizations focused on the Foundation’s target areas.
The Foundation’s charitable giving has been recognized by several organizations including Forbes Magazine, who in 2007 names Walmart the “#1 most generous company overall”. According to the Forbes article, Walmart, through it’s foundation gave away around 1.3% of it operating income. I searched for a way for the public to donate to the Walmart Foundation, but apparently there is no such thing.
The URL for The Walmart Foundation is: http://walmartstores.com/CommunityGiving/338.aspx
The URL for the Forbes article is: http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/10/16/most-generous-corporations-corprespons08-lead-cx_mk_1016charity.html
