I was deeply saddened to receive the news that Margaret E. "Maggie" Mahoney had passed away on December 22, 2011. It was my privilege to know and work with Margaret Mahoney during her tenure as President of the Commonwealth Fund, which she led from 1980 to 1995. Prior to that, she was a senior executive at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which she joined in 1973 after serving the Corporation for nearly two decades.
She was a valued advisor and a personal friend who taught me a great deal about the history of Carnegie Corporation and about the power of philanthropy to do what Andrew Carnegie called “real and permanent good in this world.” Margaret Mahoney certainly believed in that ideal and she lived it, as well.
At the Corporation, she initiated a grant program on medical education and health services that was almost revolutionary in concept, having the twofold aim of incorporating preventive medicine into medical school training and of developing a new cadre of health care workers—namely, nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants—who could supplement physician serves and thus expand healthcare to underserved populations. In the following years, she remained committed to applying the strength and reach of philanthropy to improve American health care, work for which she will be long remembered.
On behalf of the staff and Trustees of Carnegie Corporation of New York, we extend our condolences to the Commonwealth Fund and to Margaret Mahoney’s many friends and colleagues. She will be greatly missed.
The Commonwealth Fund has published a remembrance of Margaret Mahoney, which can be found here: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/About-Us/In-Memoriam.aspx