R. Sargent Shriver Jr., Peace Corps Leader and Charity Founder

Age at death: 95

A life of public service: Though he never held elected office, Mr. Shriver was the architect of a series of social programs that inspired generations and changed the lives of millions. Mr. Shriver established the Peace Corps and led President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, founding programs such as Head Start and the Job Corps. In the 1980s, he served as president (and, in 1990, international board chair) of Special Olympics, a charity founded by his wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The day after his death last month, a group he founded in 1967, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, in Chicago, won a $1-million award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, recognized as a creative and effective nonprofit.

How he made his mark: After his brother-in-law, President Kennedy, assigned him to establish the Peace Corps, Mr. Shriver shrugged off early critics of the effort and turned it into an internationally respected institution. The agency includes many lawmakers and nonprofit leaders among its alumni.

His inspiration: Mr. Shriver was a devout Catholic. His biographer, Scott Stossel, writes that so strong was Mr. Shriver’s compulsion to make the world a better place that every day he asked himself, in effect, “What have I done to improve the lot of humanity?”

How he will be remembered: His unflagging enthusiasm and commitment motivated countless individuals to enter a life of public service. “Sarge’s legacy was extraordinary in terms of the number of people he touched,” said Jamie Price, director of the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute. “Everything he did was oriented toward building peace.”

Read an appreciation of Mr. Shriver’s contribution to the nonprofit world by Chronicle columnist Pablo Eisenberg.