Brand:

Target

To help all families discover the joy of everyday life

Mission:

Focus:

Community Impact

Fortune 500 (2025):

#37

From legacy impact to living purpose

Solving for:

How does a beloved national retailer reaffirm its role as a trusted community partner—at scale?

Target has a century-long history of investing in local communities. But in a shifting cultural, economic, and competitive landscape, legacy alone no longer guaranteed leadership. Internally, teams needed clarity to act with confidence across hundreds of markets. Externally, Target risked being outshouted by competitors repositioning themselves as more community-centric. We were brought in to help Target modernize and reassert its impact—not just as something it did, but something it is.

Resulting in:

Reaffirmed Community Impact

Target has re-emerged as a modern community leader—grounded in a century of service but equipped for today’s expectations. With new clarity and consistency, the brand can now express its purpose in ways that are known and felt across 1,900+ communities nationwide. And with a strategic framework in place, every employee, partner, and neighborhood can play a part in building a stronger, more equitable future.

Working with:

Cross-organizational leadership

We partnered with leaders across community impact, brand, strategy, and internal engagement. Through deep interviews, internal audits, and cultural benchmarking, we uncovered the disconnect between Target’s real impact and how it was perceived. Our work focused on turning decades of goodwill into an actionable platform that employees, partners, and guests could feel—and replicate—every day.

A unified Community Impact Strategy

We delivered:

We built a unified strategic foundation and a set of enterprise-ready tools to help Target activate its purpose across departments and regions. This included:

  • A clear Community Impact Framework with refined philanthropic giving areas.

  • A marquee message that balances heritage with forward momentum

  • A tactical Community Impact Playbook with seven "Plays" designed to humanize, localize, and scale community action

  • Tools and KPIs to help employees bring the brand’s purpose to life in stores, media, and neighborhoods