Using Technology to Focus Disaster Response

The $25 million disaster commitment by Walmart and the Walmart Foundation includes grants for technologies that will accelerate and focus disaster relief efforts.

For example, in 2015, Walmart awarded a $1.5 million grant to the American Red Cross to develop a computerized data tracking tool – RC View – to help relief organizations know where to focus their efforts. In the hours and days after disaster strikes, many organizations manually collect disaster impact data – losing precious time, and often missing critical information about changing circumstances on the ground. The Red Cross has contracted with Environmental Systems Research Institute (a software company specializing in geographic management applications) to develop RC View, which will aggregate and share critical real-time data across organizations during emergency situations to enable a faster, more coordinated, and more efficient response.

Walmart also contributed $1 million to Good360 (a nonprofit that facilitates in-kind donations from consumer product companies for disaster relief) to develop and launch Disaster Recovery360 (DR360), an online giving platform that connects individual and corporate donors to the disaster relief “wish lists” of local charities. So often in the wake of disaster, well-intentioned donors send unsolicited product donations that only complicate and strain relief operations on the ground. DR360 will help channel donor goodwill to provide the right products at the right time in the right place. This year, for example, DR360 helped donors better meet needs on the ground in the Flint, Michigan water crisis, the South Carolina floods and the northern California wildfires. 

Learn more about how Walmart is enhancing resilience in the face of disaster