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Robert and Christine Stiller and the Stiller Family Foundation have been honored by the Association of Fundraising Professionals for their philanthropy. They were awarded the Most Outstanding Foundation Award of 2013 at the Association of Fundraising Professionals international conference in San Diego.
The award was given to the Green Mountain Coffee founder and his wife for decades of leadership through personal and foundational initiatives and corporate responsibility programs they instituted. The Stillers were also extremely instrumental in the fair trade movement, which in turn made Green Mountain the largest fair trade supplier of coffee in the world.
Green Mountain continues to this day with the Stiller’s initiative by encouraging employees to volunteer and by sending employees to coffee growing regions to meet with suppliers. 5% of the company’s pre-tax profits are also contributed to the environmentally and socially responsible initiatives that are focused on coffee growing communities. The amount contributed in 2012 equaled close to $30 million.
Initiatives in the US that the Stiller Foundation focuses on are: King Street Youth Center, Burlington City Arts, ReBuild Waterbury and Champlain College. The foundation also recently announced that they would be instilling a major grant in order to create the Robert P Stiller School of Business.
Christine Stiller has also developed and provided leadership and advocacy and grants to the Champlain’s Single Parents Program, whose goal it is to assist single parents and designed to help break the cycle of poverty and provide access to a college degree and better financial stability.
In 2012, Robert Stiller was removed as chairman of Green Mountain due to a stock trade to meet margin that violated company policies.