Caring about our communities is a core value at Whole Foods Market. Our team members are members of the Columbus community and are passionate about local causes that are important to our shopper and neighbors. We make every effort to involve ourselves locally through store-wide fundraising efforts, donations, community events and hands-on projects. We offer several ways of support for the community and will be happy to help however we can. All requests are reviewed on a rotating basis and recipients will be notified as soon as possible. Please allow 6-8 weeks for response time.
5% Community Giving Days
Each quarter our team chooses to support a local non-profit organization with a 5% day. Our team members vote on which organizations to support making it truly a day we can all stand behind! Recipients are chosen well in advance, so we encourage you to apply 6-9 months in advance. All 5% day applicants must be a local 501c3 non-profit organization. To apply, send your 5% Community Giving Day Application to tiffany.smith@wholefoods.com with your 501c3 paperwork and a completed W9.
Donations
We are happy to provide local non-profit organizations with food, goods and services to help with events and general support needs. It is very helpful if you are explicit with your request and identify your exact needs, quantities or dollar amounts preferred. Unfortunately, we cannot honor every request but we will do our best to help garner your organization support through other community giving programs if a donation is not possible at the time of your request. Applications can be submitted through our Donation Request Form.
Nickels for Nonprofits
We love to reward environmental consciousness! For every recyclable bag a customer uses during their shopping trip, they have the option to redeem .5 cents toward their grocery bill or donate it to a local non-profit. Eight organizations are chosen, two per quarter, to be beneficiaries of this program.
Community Involvement & Partnership
Whenever possible, our team likes to be hands-on with our community partners and donation recipients. Do you have a project and need volunteers? Let us know and we’ll rally the troops! We generally choose 1-2 projects per quarter.
In order to keep our donations local and best serve our community, we do not donate to individuals, individuals seeking pledges, multiple requests from the same organization, or organizations and/or causes outside of central Ohio.
