Corporate News

Clayton Invests in Communities Through Innovative Philanthropic Partnerships and Team Member Volunteer Efforts in 2024

Company celebrates a record-breaking year of philanthropic impact, with team member volunteer participation reaching unprecedented levels

April 22, 2025

MARYVILLE, TN April 22, 2025__ – Clayton, a leading national builder of single-family attainable housing, continues to pursue its commitment to do good and drive change by investing in the communities where its team members live and work. In 2024, Clayton and its businesses supported more than 250 local and national philanthropy initiatives, empowering thousands of families and hundreds of communities around the country. Additionally, Clayton team members provided more than 97,000 volunteer hours to support local communities.


“In 2024, our partnerships and team member volunteer initiatives generated meaningful impact and positive change nationwide. We aim to support even more families and communities in 2025,” said Susan Brown, Clayton Director of Philanthropy.


Clayton Impact
Clayton Impact is a volunteer time-off program that empowers team members to invest in causes that are meaningful to them. Clayton provides eight hours of paid time-off to each full-time team member to volunteer for local causes.


Clayton Impact achieved a 68.5 percent team member participation in 2024. In 2023, Clayton celebrated a major milestone of 100,000 total volunteer hours since the program began—a number that surged to 227,000 hours by the end of 2024.


In 2024, Clayton offered many organized volunteer projects while also empowering individual team member volunteer opportunities, including building and repairing homes for underserved neighbors; supporting animal shelters, nursing homes and hospitals; building beds for children in need; and coordinating food and supply donations for people impacted by Hurricane Helene in Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina – an effort that also included transporting the materials to towns affected by the devastation.


National Partnerships


Family Promise
Clayton and Family Promise, the leading national organization addressing family homelessness, continued to work closely to serve families at risk of experiencing homelessness. Through its national partnership, A Future Begins at Home, Clayton and Family Promise help families achieve housing stability through innovative homelessness prevention and stabilization efforts. The partnership supports families through case management, rental assistance, education and training. In 2024, the partnership helped prevent more than 4,100 families, including 7,800 children, from experiencing the trauma of homelessness through Family Promise Affiliate grants and two home donations.


Additional partnership milestones include:



  • Catalyzed more than $14 million in additional funding to prevent more than 30,000 families, including 47,000 children, from experiencing homelessness since 2019

  • More than 80 percent of families who received assistance through A Future Begins at Home have achieved long-term stable housing

  • Donated 18 homes to Family Promise, with most used as transitional housing to provide stability for families leaving shelters and taking steps to secure permanent housing, helping many families for years to come


The Arbor Day Foundation
Through its partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, the world's largest non-profit member organization dedicated to planting trees, Clayton helps build a better tomorrow for people and the planet by planting trees in forests of great need around the country. In 2024, Clayton became the first home builder to join the Evergreen Alliance, a collective of engaged leaders in corporate sustainability. This program is part of the Arbor Day Foundation’s broader mission to foster environmental stewardship and inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees across the globe.


In partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, Clayton has supported 27 reforestation projects in 15 states, planting over 4.47 million regionally native species trees and helping to restore over 8,800 acres of forest land. In 2024, Clayton helped plant 950,000 trees, restoring 2,217 acres of land. These efforts featured an innovative reclamation project on a legacy coal mine, revitalizing degraded land across two states and contributing to restoration in the New River Gorge National Park and Reserve. The impact of these reforestation efforts will lead to cleaner water, improved air quality and ecological support for local biodiversity and wildlife habitats for years to come.


These long-term benefits and the opportunity to do good in the communities that serve us all are why we have committed to plant another 1.07 million trees in 2025, representing one tree for every estimated tree used to build our homes in 2024.


Operation HOPE®
Clayton and Operation HOPE, a national organization that equips people with financial tools and education to advance economic opportunities, have partnered since 2022 to help individuals overcome common barriers to homeownership, such as low credit scores, lack of down payment, debt and challenges with money management. In 2024, Clayton continued to invest in Operation HOPE’s HOPE Inside® Homeownership Program, which provided more than 4,300 clients with homeownership coaching and financial education resources. This same year, 65 percent of clients increased their credit scores, 74 percent of clients increased their savings, and 84% of clients who applied for a home loan were approved.


Read more about Clayton’s philanthropy and volunteer efforts here.


About Clayton
Founded in 1956, Clayton is committed to opening doors to a better life through homeownership. Clayton is a leading single-family, values-driven home builder dedicated to attainable housing, sustainable practices, and creating a world-class experience for customers and team members. The company’s portfolio includes a comprehensive range of site-built, modern manufactured, Tiny, CrossMod® and modular housing. In 2024, Clayton built more than 60,000 homes across the country. For more information, visit claytonhomes.com.
CrossMod is a registered trademark of the Manufactured Housing Institute.
ENERGY STAR® and the ENERGY STAR® mark are registered trademarks owned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
1 energy.gov ZERH guidelines
2 Energy savings are based on electrical and gas energy consumption using NREL® BEopt™ to estimate annual energy consumption of a home built to DOE Zero Energy Ready Home™ guidelines compared to the same home built only to industry and HUD standards in Knoxville, Tennessee.