PuraVida Coffee
Industry: Coffee
Headquarters: Seattle, WA
Founders: Chris Dearnley and John Sage
Founded: 1992
Markets: Nationwide
Interviewed: John Sage, Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder
PuraVida Coffee has grown to become one of the largest sellers of Fair Trade, organic coffee in the U.S. The mission of PuraVida is to create good by using capitalism to empower producers, motivate consumers, inspire business leaders, and ultimately serve the poor. From the very beginning, the founders viewed PuraVida as an engine to generate awareness and funding for the programs the firm runs in Costa Rica. The company is involved in four neighborhoods in San Jose with six full time staff, and a crew of about thirty volunteers providing hot food and nutritious meals six days a week to about 500 kids. It also operates four computer centers and an extensive after school soccer program that gives kids a way to get off the streets and to be in a community surrounded by people who really care for them. It is in these ways that the business makes community transformations possible. In addition, the firm builds an emotional connection between the producers of the coffee and other beverages, and the consumers who buy them. The goal is to transform the daily act of making a cup of coffee into an act that creates change in the world.
The involvement philosophy of PuraVida is based on the idea that business has enormous potential to multiply resources; capitalism is unique in its ability to take a good idea and capital and to return results to shareholders in a dramatic way. It is the basis of PuraVida’s involvement philosophy that those same principles should be applied on behalf of positive social change. As a result, the community involvement of the company inspires its customers and increases their loyalty to the PuraVida company.
PuraVida Coffee
3517 Stone Way N.
Seattle, WA 98103
Tags: beverages, coffee, corporate philanthropy, John Sage, PuraVida Coffee
