For over 40 years, The Home Depot has risen steadily to become the United States’ number one home improvement superstore, providing millions of American homeowners, tenants, builders, and businesses the materials and tools to turn their physical abodes into comfortable places to live and work in.

But after four decades of achieving huge amounts of profits and success in helping Americans afford their dream homes, The Home Depot is now giving back to these communities of people by assisting those Americans—particularly military veterans—who are in dire need of the funds to build their own homes—and indirectly, to build better lives.

The Home Depot Foundation is a registered 501(c)3 public charity established to improve the homes and lives of US military veterans and their families, respond to areas impacted by natural disasters, and train skilled tradespeople to fill labor gaps in their local communities.

Since 2011, the Foundation has invested more than $400M in veteran causes and improved more than 50,000 veteran homes and facilities. To date, the Foundation has pledged to invest half a billion dollars to provide permanent supportive housing for veterans by 2025 via their nonprofit partners, Team Depot and Veteran Housing Grants. They also commit to providing $50 million in training the next generation of skilled tradespeople through the Path to Pro program.

As mentioned briefly above there are four main thrusts to The Home Depot Foundation’s charitable efforts, namely:

The Veteran Housing Grants Program which awards partners with and funds respected and recognized national nonprofit organizations working for veteran causes in homelessness, housing for senior veterans, and veterans with service-connected disabilities for the new construction or rehabilitation of permanent supportive housing. Awards typically range from $100,000 to $500,000.

Organizations that qualify for this program include: 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that have maintained good standing with the Internal Revenue Service for at least five years; organizations with a current operating budget of at least $300,000 and audited financial statements from the past three years; organizations with previous experience developing veteran housing and that currently manage or own veteran-specific housing; organizations with a 15+ year ownership stake in the development; and organizations involved in the Continuum of Care or a local collaboration to end homelessness in their community.

Specifically, there is a focus on projects in the following cities with over 300,000 residents: Los Angeles, CA; Seattle, WA; New York, NY; Houston, TX; Detroit, MI; San Diego, CA; Denver, CO; Chicago, IL; Atlanta, GA; and Tampa, FL.

Meanwhile, The Home Depot Foundation’s Community Impact Grants offers grant awards up to $5,000 to 501(c)(3) designated organizations recognized and in good standing with the IRS for a minimum of one year and tax-exempt public service agencies in the U.S. that are using the power of volunteers to improve the community, typically in the service of local veterans. Veteran focus areas include the 4 million combat-wounded veterans who have a service-connected disability; the over 37 thousand homeless veterans who are without shelter on any given night; and the 10 million aging veterans and military retirees who are over 65-years old.

Providing manpower and ground support for both grant program types, Team Depot is The Home Depot’s associate volunteer force that donates their time and sweat equity to help The Home Depot Foundation improve more than 50,000 veteran homes and facilities and serve communities impacted by natural disasters.

In a single year, more than 55,000 Team Depot volunteers have completed more than 315,000 hours of volunteerism in support of veterans and communities in need, providing the supplies and resources they need to help impacted residents recover and rebuild. Through The Home Depot Foundation, store associates have partnered with more than 4,000 local nonprofit partners and 21 national nonprofit partners to serve more than 5,000 U.S. cities.

Finally, in its commitment to educating more people in the skilled trades and helping them find careers in the home improvement industry, The Home Depot and The Home Depot Foundation has established its Path to Pro program to help prepare skilled people for job opportunities in the home improvement sector.

With hundreds of thousands of open roles in the trades nationally, The Home Depot partners with industry leaders like Home Builders Institute (HBI) Military (for military personnel planning to return to civilian life); Home Builders Institute (HBI) Youth (2-year pre-apprentice trades certification program for high school students) and Atlanta Technical College (ATC) (offering high-quality instructors, professional skills classes, on-campus career development coaching, wrap-around services, and work-based trainings, apprenticeships and internships across skilled trades like carpentry, electrical, plumbing, HVAC and welding).

Since the program’s inception, Path to Pro has introduced more than 15,000 to the skilled trades and certified more than 5,000.

Furthermore, The Home Depot Foundation is launching several new initiatives, such as geo targeted online resources and entry-level certificates to advanced training, and even a networking platform with the company's Pro customers. With Path to Pro, promising trades people will have even more opportunity to pursue their career journey in trades from start to finish.

In appreciation for over four decades of Americans’ trust in The Home Depot for providing the means necessary to build thriving homes and communities, the company, through The Home Depot Foundation, aims to give back and demonstrate its thanks to the nation’s military veterans by investing a quarter of a billion dollars for their benefit. From home grants and disability assistance to disaster relief and job training; The Home Depot Foundation is but a small yet much appreciated token of gratitude in return for the sacrifices made by the millions of American veterans in the service to their country.