Most Companies Ask If Purpose Pays, Macy’s Decided to Prove It
When Sam Di Scipio asked the room at EFG2026 to raise their hands if their social impact work had ever been challenged to prove its business value, nearly every arm went up. Her answer was equally direct: at Macy’s, Inc., they put a number to that question — a $5 billion commitment over five years. And then they exceeded it. This wasn’t a funding commitment, but a company wide opportunity to find ways to create impact across departments. From community investments to product development to supply chain to employee-led grants and much more.
As Senior Director of Social Impact and co-creator of Mission Every One, Macy’s first-ever social purpose platform — and a company that EFG recognized as Corporation of the Year back in 2010 — Di Scipio offered an unflinching account of what it took to build the platform, what the company got right, where it fell short, and what comes next. Her core argument: this was never about going big. It was about “building a purpose that’s right for your business and having the operational discipline to deliver on your commitments.”
Macy’s Didn’t Want a CSR Program. It Wanted a Business Strategy.
The question Mission Every One was designed to answer wasn’t just philanthropic, it was strategic. In 2021 and 2022, Macy’s was in a period of business transformation. Consumers and employees were increasingly scrutinizing how companies operate, not merely what they sell. Di Scipio and a cross-functional leadership team defined what purpose would need to do inside the organization: build stakeholder relevance, act as a decision-making lens across functions, and inspire cross-functional collaboration. The platform was never intended to be owned by the social impact team alone.
To find the right cause area, Macy’s conducted research across colleagues, store leaders, employee resource group members, and customers to identify what Di Scipio called “that sweet spot” between a genuine societal need and a place where a national retailer could credibly play a role. That research pointed toward youth empowerment — the anchor for Mission Every One’s first chapter.
“You cannot sell purpose after you’ve built it. We started with our CEO, secured his buy-in and sponsorship, and then quickly assembled an executive cross-functional group from marketing, DEI, sustainability, supply chain, HR, procurement, and our stores.” — Sam Di Scipio, Senior Director of Social Impact, Macy’s, Inc.
The Secret to Operationalizing Purpose: Get In the Room Where Decisions Are Made
C-suite endorsement was essential, but not sufficient alone. Mission Every One wasn’t the only new strategy in town: a new brand strategy was launching simultaneously, and store teams were navigating new ways of working. The platform had to find its way through that noise. The vehicle turned out to be Macy’s own transformation office — a cross-functional program already running that included many of the leaders who had shaped Mission Every One. Embedding into the transformation office’s weekly meeting cadence gave them access to where decisions, accountability, and reporting already lived. “It’s not necessarily the sexy thing,” Di Scipio acknowledged, “but it does embed you pretty quickly.”
On the partnership side, Macy’s shifted from a partner-led approach to a mission-led one, which meant ending some long-standing relationships. Di Scipio was direct about how that was handled:
- early and transparent conversations,
- a clear rationale,
- step-down funding, and
- an open offer to make introductions to new corporate partners.
The new portfolio was built around mission alignment, recognizable nonprofit brands that could activate at retail moments, and national reach that could also show up locally at the store level. The result was partnerships like FIT’s Future of Fashion show (now in its fifth year, with student finalists mentored by Macy’s private brands team) and a Big Brothers Big Sisters holiday campaign that put kids’ original artwork in the Herald Square windows and bigs and littles on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade® float. Those kinds of activations, Di Scipio noted, are what get other parts of the business calling to ask how they can get involved.
$6 Billion in and 1 CEO Transition. Here’s What Worked and What Didn’t.
The $5 billion signature commitment was reached a year ahead of schedule. By the end of fiscal 2025, the company had surpassed $6 billion — directed to entrepreneurial growth for partners, investment in young people, and supplier support through programs. On brand health, Macy’s moved to the number one position among peers on “cares about community.” Internally, the platform produced something harder to measure but equally real: colleague pride, and genuine adoption across the organization.
But Di Scipio was equally candid about what didn’t work. The single-cause focus on youth empowerment brought clarity and strong partnerships, but it also unintentionally excluded stakeholders who couldn’t see themselves in it. The $5 billion commitment, while galvanizing at the leadership level, felt too big to touch for many colleagues — someone else’s job, not a personal rally cry. And customer awareness of Mission Every One remained low throughout; when Macy’s did expose customers to the platform, sentiment was strong, but the brand never built it into the consumer conversation. The narrative, Di Scipio acknowledged, was siloed when it needed to be seamless.
When the company transitioned CEOs, the proof points were strong enough to earn a new champion, Tony Spring, Macy’s, Inc’s current Chairman and CEO.. “Proof gives you permission to evolve,” Di Scipio said. That permission is now being exercised. Mission Every One is actively moving into its second chapter, with a broader focus designed to be more seamlessly connected to the Macy’s consumer brand and more legible to colleagues as a rally cry.
What Comes Next: Mission Every One’s Second Chapter
Four years of proof earned Macy’s something important: permission to evolve. The next chapter of Mission Every One wasn’t built by doing a 180 — it was built by going back to the research. Di Scipio and her team conducted extensive interviews across the organization, deliberately including people who had been close to the platform and people who hadn’t, to get unbiased insight into what the next chapter needed to do differently.
To get there, Macy’s partnered with Muneer Panjwani at Engage for Good and Phil Haid and the team at Public Inc., to shape what that next chapter should look like. The platform launched internally just before EFG 2026, and a broader rollout to colleagues and customers happened shortly after. Early reactions from senior leaders, Di Scipio said, were simple and exactly what they wanted: a platform that feels uniquely Macy’s.
The next chapter of MEO is rooted in the Macy’s brand rather than the Inc. identity — emotion-led, community-focused, and designed to inspire connection rather than being anchored in specific causes. Where the first chapter sometimes felt siloed from the consumer conversation, the next chapter is specifically designed to be seamlessly aligned with Macy’s consumer brand and messaging. And the new platform is built around simpler, clearer messaging so that every employee understands their role in achieving it.
The next chapter is also interwoven into what Macy’s calls its guiding star — the framework that orients the entire organization across purpose, strategy, brand, culture, and social purpose. “Mission Every One isn’t about something extra,” Di Scipio said. “It’s our social contract.”
Three Principles Every Purpose Platform Should Be Built Around
Di Scipio closed with three principles she described as the operational core of “purpose with precision.”
- Commit and measure: Choose a metric that is clear enough to explain, measurable enough to track, and meaningful enough that leadership will care. Before any big announcement, she advised asking three questions — who owns this, operationally, what data will track it, and what decisions will change because of it. If those can’t be answered, pause the announcement and build the system first.
- Build relevancy: Root purpose in what will drive business performance, whether that’s brand trust, customer loyalty, colleague pride, or investor confidence. Relevancy, she said, will never go out of style.
- Operationalize: Find where decisions and accountability rhythms already live — planning cycles, performance reviews, sourcing processes, transformation programs — and embed purpose there. That’s the difference between a communications plan and an operating plan.
For the broader field, Di Scipio’s challenge was direct: most organizations aren’t debating whether purpose matters. They’re struggling to make it work credibly, consistently, and connected to the business. The answer isn’t better campaigns or stronger storytelling in isolation. It’s building better purpose ecosystems, ones embedded in how the enterprise functions.