Our Work
At the Walton Family Foundation, we continually strive to understand better what works — and where we can improve. We support innovation, inclusion, collaboration and — above all — community-led change.
We listen to caregivers and conservationists. Educators and entrepreneurs. Farmers and futurists. Doers and dreamers. Their diverse perspectives help us reach shared understanding and create innovative solutions.
Our 2025 Strategy prioritizes three unifying objectives that sharpen our efforts and help ensure we practice our core values as we support our grantees' work.
We are committed to ensuring the voices and needs of communities guide our work. This starts by listening. By learning from their lived experiences, we can help grantees lead community-driven solutions.
Change starts from the ground up. With leaders rooted in their communities. Like parents creating new school models to meet the unique needs of their children. Farmers and ranchers embracing sustainable practices to protect water. And entrepreneurs from underserved and immigrant communities that are too often excluded from opportunity. We support their ideas and elevate their solutions to deliver lasting change to our most complex challenges.
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February 20, 2024A fellowship with Southern Methodist University is helping make the field of philanthropic evaluation more equitable and inclusive -
December 29, 2023Home Region Program Director Robert Burns sits in conversation with a local leader helping underserved entrepreneurs grow great ideas -
October 6, 2023In the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta, filmmaker Nolan Dean tells stories that empower communities and people whose voices are often unheard
Diversity, equity and inclusion are catalysts for innovation and creativity. We embrace and celebrate our differences. Then we put our differences to work to solve global challenges.
Our strategy prioritizes DEI because too many people are excluded from decisions that impact their lives. Like Communities of Color, which often face the first and worst impacts of education inequity and climate change.
Effective philanthropy must listen to and include those with the most at stake. For this reason, we embed DEI across our grantmaking to ensure fair and equitable access to funding. We believe this collective effort yields better, lasting solutions.
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November 9, 2023Lessons learned from a year of grantmaking to community-based news organizations -
January 12, 2024Naccaman Williams, the foundation’s director of special projects, reflects on the impact Martin Luther King Jr. has had on his life and career -
March 10, 2023A trio of Atlanta HBCUs are leveraging Audubon’s national network for campus and community change
Every day is a new learning opportunity. Across our work, we support people with big ideas who look past differences and find creative ways to solve problems.
We are committed to leading together and redefining what it means to collaborate.
To build new partnerships that unite people, resources and ideas. It’s work that comes to life through collaboration with tribal leaders to find solutions to the water crisis in the West. And partnerships with community leaders in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta to create a more equitable economy.
We are committed to bridging divides. Looking for new allies. Finding common solutions. We collaborate not only because our partners advance the causes we support but because they share our belief in helping people and communities access opportunity. To give everyone a chance to thrive.
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November 13, 2023New research into public attitudes toward collaboration finds people think change is possible. And they believe philanthropy can play a critical and unifying role. -
November 13, 2023Echelon Insights, in collaboration with Benenson Strategy Group, conducted a survey on behalf of the Walton Family Foundation to examine views on collaboration around issues facing the country and how philanthropic organizations could support collaboration. -
November 16, 2023Researchers at The Land Institute are exploring whether the forage crop sainfoin could become a food staple for consumers – and a climate solution
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May 30, 2023Supporting Communities in Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta -
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November 2, 2024Americans want nonprofits and foundations to lead on some of the country’s toughest challenges, a new survey says. Here are four strategies to answer that call -
October 29, 2024The Walton Family Foundation uses opinion research to helps us better understand public views and make meaningful, data-informed funding decisions -
October 23, 2024Environmental Defense Fund’s Margot Brown works to find climate solutions that benefit the communities most impacted – and to lift up women leaders