Inside One of America’s Largest Corporate-Nonprofit Partnerships

February 25, 2015 | Read Time: 3 minutes

Retail giant Walmart and the food-bank network Feeding America may have written the book on corporate-nonprofit relationships—or at least a book.

Since striking up a partnership in 2005, Walmart and Feeding America have grown so close that the nonprofit keeps an updated tome of all the ways the two work together and the measurable results of those efforts.

Mission alignment originally brought the two together: Feeding America wanted to expand its network, and Walmart wanted to become a name brand in the movement to fight hunger. Walmart’s motivations were as much about opportunity and potential impact as they were about emotional attachment to an issue. The company knew it had the resources and expertise to be a force in the cause.

“We weren’t just another player,” says Julie Gehrki, senior director of the Walmart Foundation. “We could be a leader.”

As Walmart looked for partners to jump-start its anti-hunger work, Feeding America raised its hand high. The nonprofit said it could take unwanted food off Walmart shelves and deliver it to the hungry. The group also showed it had the infrastructure to do this safely and efficiently.

“They had a scale that was as close as an NGO comes to matching us,” says Ms. Gehrki. “We needed a big partner that reaches all around the country, and they had 220 food banks.”

Even so, Walmart wanted to start small. In 2007 the company piloted the program in its Sam’s Club stores to work out the kinks.

“The first year of the partnership we donated 9 million pounds of food, which is a lot, but a small portion in our world,” Ms. Gehrki says.

Feeding America proved itself capable. It also worked hard to track impact and maintain an open line of communication with Walmart. Impressed, the company expanded the food-recovery program to its entire network of Walmart stores in 2009.

At about the same time, the ongoing economic recession increased the number of people turning to food banks for help.

Feeding America and Walmart worked together to enlarge the program. In 2009, Walmart donated 35 refrigerated trucks so that the nonprofit could recover more food, as well as money to help Feeding America improve its capacity.

That year Walmart placed an executive on Feeding America’s board to ensure that the two partners could grow together for the long term. Michael Lewis, Walmart’s global head of merchandising, served on the Feeding America national board of directors from 2009 to 2011. De De Priest, the company’s senior vice president of dairy, deli, and bakery, joined the board in 2011. In addition, many Walmart representatives serve on the boards of local Feeding America food banks across the country.

While few nonprofits have the capacity to deliver what Walmart wanted in this case, there are broader lessons to draw, Ms. Gehrki says.

For starters, it pays to move slowly, she says. Think before you dive into a relationship: Do our missions really align? And if so, what can we honestly deliver?

While thoughtfulness and transparency may slow things down early on, no major partnership flourishes without it, says Ms. Gehrki.

“There are [corporations] that want to go all-in on a signature program during its first year. Normally that’s a bumpy ride,” she says. “If you have a bump where expectations are not met on one side or the other in the early years, it can be a fatal blow.”