Hilton Foundation Mourns Loss of Hilton Prize Director Judy M. Miller

News Release
Hilton Foundation Mourns Loss of Hilton Prize Director Judy M. Miller
Renowned nonprofit executive passes away in Los Angeles at the age of 77
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 11, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Philanthropist and activist Judy M. Miller, passed away on February 8, 2016 at her home in Los Angeles of natural causes. She was 77. Judy was known throughout the nonprofit community as a tireless advocate for vulnerable and disadvantaged people around the world. She served as Vice President and Director of the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize for 18 years, after a remarkable four-decade career in communications and marketing.

“Judy was a beloved member of our Foundation family and will be greatly missed,” said Peter Laugharn, President and CEO at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. “We are very proud of her many accomplishments and will miss her dedication to discovering and advocating for nonprofit organizations that have made extraordinary advances in relieving human suffering.”…

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Chronicle pf Philanthropy
February 12, 2016
Appreciation: Judy Miller’s Leadership Made Hilton Prize Rigorous and Rewarding
By Tom Watson
Last fall at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, I watched as Judy Miller worked the room. The venerable Park Avenue pile was packed with philanthropic luminaries and social-sector leaders celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the world’s largest philanthropic award, of which she was the longtime director. Former laureates told stories of challenge and redemption and impact as the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation justly marked one of the great philanthropic success stories in glamorous fashion.

Indefatigable, personally generous, insatiably curious, and possessed of the unmistakable glow that comes from organizing people and resources for the betterment of society, Judy was a true force in the world of American philanthropy. She didn’t have her name on the front door, she rarely stepped into the spotlight, and she worked the inside game. But she made a path that made a difference.

Her death Monday at age 77 shocked and saddened the huge network of nonprofit leaders and change-makers long accustomed to her stoic presence and quiet leadership. This was a person who logged millions of miles visiting nonprofit programs around the world in the service of making the Hilton Prize the most rigorous (and rewarding) of program achievements. Judy delighted in stories of exotic and occasionally dangerous travel, and she took pride in just how hard it was to win a Hilton Prize.

Her record of service to philanthropy lives on in the Hilton laureates, a group that includes nonprofits that have been more innovative and had more impact than most others on the planet…