The influence of the Walton family in America

The Effect of the Walton Family on Northwest Arkansas and Region and the State

Helen and Sam Walton founded the Walton Family Foundation many years ago with a goal that is supported by clarity and objectives intended to improve lives by expanding access to economic and educational opportunities. Since then, the family has continued to further this vision through promoting equal opportunity and constructing a more equitable society. The Walton Family was certain that their foundation could help youngsters from low-income and minority backgrounds realize the American dream, support innovation, and produce life-changing results outcomes through sparking new ideas (2020 Home Region Strategic Plan (1).

Details of the Strategic Plan

The Walton Family Foundation consists of a genuine and underway devotion to aid the region that enabled to launch one of the outstanding and successful stories in the American business. In 2009, the family established a home region strategic plan 2020 to demonstrate its commitment to forge investment in the business region of America through creation and sustenance of businesses and development of economy to benefit the residents in the long-run. The plan was intended by the family to regulate the expenditure of more than 300 million dollars to intensify the quality of lives of the people in the region and in the production of results which are among the best in the world.

To ensure efficiency in meeting its objectives

the home region was subdivided strategically into two geographical sub-regions or ideologies, each representing a specific agenda or a purpose. These sub-regions included the Walton Family headquarters, which is also the home of Helen and Sam, located in Northwest Arkansas, and secondly, the Mississippi and Arkansas’ Delta Region, which represents the areas of the nation that are most impoverished. The first arm of the home region, which is Northwest Arkansas, was tasked with attracting and retaining at all levels the best talents and ensuring the viability of the region in the long-run, particularly in Washington and Benton counties. The strategy was done through the establishment of world-class schools to provide educational options that are of high quality and strengthening of the coordinated economic development of the region. It also created cultural and arts amenities to attain the leading position, and preservation of the place to ensure its attractiveness, with built and natural environment that is distinct (2020 Home Region Strategic Plan (2-3).

The other arm was to address the improvement of Pre-K-12 education in the region as a whole, while getting down to critical needs in the counties targeted to set up a firm base on which future development of economy can transpire. The objectives of this program were to benefit residents of Coahoma County, in Mississippi and Phillips County, in Arkansas. This strategy was aimed at advancing efforts of students from under-resourced and impoverished areas attain their full potential; cutting down the crime rates and enable residents to feel safe to improve their quality of life. The program also targeted the school-aged children to add variety to them outside the classroom programs and launching investments that meet the jobs targeted in the market (Walton Family Foundation).

Effects of the programs

The Walton Family Foundation has been working towards improving the students’ K-12 outcomes since its establishment, by creating access to educational choices which are of high-quality in a way to set them for the opportunities in life. Today, the foundation has remained bound to the original vision, where it has supported with more than 1 million dollars to make the schools better for the American students. In every four charter schools, one national school has been supported by the Walton Family Foundation since 1990 (2020 Home Region Strategic Plan 3-4).

Ways Walton Foundation has affected the Northwest Arkansas Region and State

In the Northwest Arkansas region, the foundation is making the commitment that is unprecedented in expanding opportunities for education using the 2020 K-12 strategic plan. Its focus is on grant making in cities throughout the country, notably Boston, Denver, Indianapolis, Memphis, New York, Washington D.C and many others. All these towns are ready and need transformation. The foundation also supports the efforts by states in Colorado, Indiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee, New Jersey and Texas. Others are Ohio, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arkansas, Florida, Arizona Wisconsin and Missouri. The Walton Foundation released more than 190 million dollars for investment in 2016 for K-12 education and has purposed to invest 1 billion dollars for over five year’s course (K-12 Education).

The Walton Family has also affected Northwest Arkansas through commercial building and protection of the natural resources. Through the creation of partnerships in the region and the state on community interest, business, and conservation, the foundation has indeed achieved a lasting change. Using the 2020 Strategic Plan on environment, the organization is investing in restoring the oceans health through preservation of rivers and fisheries in a manner that is sustainable, and provision of fresh water (Environment)

The foundation’s target was to envisage a supportive region of economic diversity to attract and grow the living-wage jobs. This target increased the vitality of economy in the long-term through coordination of projects and policies for economic development in the region and development of entrepreneurial culture. The creation of corporations selling products at Wal-mart established the offices in the areas following the existence of Wal-mart home office in that region. The establishment of these offices can be attributed to the increased vitality in the economy and the increased culture of entrepreneurship development in the region. For instance, a Wal-mart store was opened which led to the failure of a hardware store in that locality, but led to the establishment of a new art gallery (Russell & Dean 677). The creation of an art gallery can be read as the substitution of business with another and no effect would be reflected because it is an expanding sector that does not compete directly with Wal-Mart. The impact of Wal-mart on small business sector can only be felt in cases where there are retail businesses which compete. For instance, the Home Depot, Target, and Kmart can be affected negatively by the establishment of Wal-Mart. Wal-mart’s entry resulted in the opening of other corporations, the women clothing’s store shop was turned into a restaurant. Other stores vacated have been occupied by a rock climbing facility, a candle shop, a coffee shop, a dinner theatre, a dinner store, a law firm and an antique mall (Russell & Dean 678).

Description of Wal-mart Effect on smaller Towns

There was a widely accepted view of the United States economy that Wal-mart charity significantly harmed the small business sectors by setting its prices low throughout the country. When Wal-mart opens, some small business sectors end up failing but create opportunities for other businesses (Russell & Dean 677). This kind of effect might not be felt in the economy since the business that has exited the market has been substituted by a new one. In other words, the exit of a small business and being replaced by another can be referred to as an impact of general-equilibrium. Through the detailed examination of the Wal-mart effects on other business sectors in the U.S economy using several econometric dynamics like business growth, data’s geographical levels and assessment of different cross-sections and series of data, no evidence could be identified to prove that the entry of Wal-mart had an effect on either size, growth or level of profitability of small business sectors in the U.S economy (Russell & Dean 690).

Conclusion

The commitment by the Walton Family Foundation is to expand opportunities for education to all the children and produce the outcome that matters. Through rigorous evaluations, the foundation is ready to learn from the failures and successes for continual improvement to ensure availability of opportunities for every child to reach the American dream.

Works Cited

“2020 Home Region Strategic Plan.” Waltonfamilyfoundation.org (2017):1-5. http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/~/media/documents/home-region-strategic-plan-long.pdf?la=en

”Environment.” Walton Family Foundation. N.p., 2017. Web. 12 Dec. 2017.

”K-12 Education.” Walton Family Foundation. N.p., 2017. Web. 12 Dec. 2017.

Sobel, Russell S., and Andrea M. Dean. ”HAS WAL‐MART BURIED MOM AND POP? THE IMPACT OF WAL‐MART ON SELF‐EMPLOYMENT AND SMALL ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES.” Economic Inquiry 46.4 (2008): 676-695.