Terrance Keenan, Health Grant Maker

Age at death: 85

Major philanthropy job: Vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 1972, he became one of the foundation’s first employees. He worked there until he retired in 2003, and continued to serve as a consultant until his death.

How he made his mark: Mr. Keenan was “revered as the man who took philanthropy out of the wood-paneled boardrooms and into the narrow alleys, the dirt roads, and the backwaters of America, where the most vulnerable populations needed help,” according to a Johnson foundation book.

Key accomplishments: Based on information he gathered as he traveled to community health-care programs in small towns across the United States, he developed several signature grant-making programs at the foundation: the Local Initiative Funding Partners Program, which matches money provided by local foundations for health-care projects that serve low-income people, and the Interfaith Caregivers Program, an effort to encourage religious organizations to join forces to tend to needy people with chronic health problems.

Other accomplishments: He helped found Grantmakers in Health, an organization that represents foundations and corporations that support health causes. The association in 1993 created the Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Philanthropy to honor outstanding grant makers.

What he did before joining philanthropy: Mr. Keenan flew throughout the South Pacific as a naval aviator during World War II. Though only about 5 feet 2 inches tall, he was also a Golden Gloves boxing contender. Before embarking on his philanthropic career, he taught at a private school in St. Louis for five years and then worked for Merrill Lynch.

How he will be remembered: “He’s viewed by people in health philanthropy as one of the guiding thinkers,” says Lauren LeRoy, president of Grantmakers in Health. She says he helped foundation officials understand the “privilege” they “had to take on the toughest social issues and be agents of change.”