Fritz Steiger

Fritz Steiger has spent more than five decades building organizations, advancing ideas, and bringing people together around causes he believes can strengthen families, communities, and the country.

His career began in business and public affairs, but a defining opportunity came in 1981 when Sam Walton asked him to establish and lead the Walmart Foundation. As its founding executive director, Fritz worked alongside Walton in Bentonville, Arkansas, developing philanthropic initiatives that reflected Walmart’s commitment to its associates and the communities it served. His work included launching an early college scholarship program that began as a pilot and grew nationally, as well as developing community-based giving initiatives.

That experience helped shape a career devoted to institution-building and public service. Fritz later co-founded the Texas Public Policy Foundation, along with Dr. James R Leininger, which grew into one of the nation’s leading state-based public policy organizations. He also co-founded Children First America and became a national leader in the early school-choice movement. Working with John Walton and former Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, and other education reformers, he helped develop and expand privately funded scholarship programs that gave parents greater freedom in choosing schools for their children. Nearly 100 scholarship programs were ultimately established across the country representing approximately $500 million.

Earlier in his career, Fritz was involved in corporate affairs, public policy, and political campaigns. His experience included the 1979–80 George H.W. Bush presidential campaign, political work in Arkansas and Texas, including efforts that helped elect four candidates to the Texas Supreme Court. Throughout his career, he has worked at the intersection of business, philanthropy, education, public policy, and civic leadership.

Yet Fritz considers family and faith more important than any professional accomplishment.

He is the father of six children—Benjamin, Jonathan, Zechariah, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Peter—whose lives and careers now extend across military service, education, business, finance, and entrepreneurship. Three are married, and the arrival of his first grandson has given Fritz an even deeper appreciation for the responsibility one generation carries for those that follow.

That perspective is central to his most recent work.

In 2026, Fritz published Divine Disruption: Restoring America to God’s Providence, drawing upon his experiences in business, politics, philanthropy, education reform, faith, and family. More than a memoir, the book reflects on the people and experiences that shaped his life and the lessons he believes are important for the next generation.

The ideas developed through Divine Disruption also helped inspire the Alliance for Restoration, an initiative created to connect and amplify individuals and organizations working to strengthen the foundational institutions of American life—including faith, family, education, entrepreneurship, culture, and civic responsibility.

A graduate of the University of Arkansas with a B.S. in Agricultural Economics, Fritz continues to make his home in Bentonville, Arkansas. Through Deltox, Inc., he also provides strategic consulting, advisory, and board service, drawing upon more than fifty years of experience building organizations and developing relationships across the business, nonprofit, philanthropic, and public-policy communities.

Across those years, one theme has remained constant: institutions matter, but people and relationships matter more. For Fritz, the work of one generation is ultimately measured by what it leaves to the generations that follow.