Warren Hellman, who built a fortune in finance and used it to support a wide variety of causes and cultural activities in the San Francisco Bay area, died Sunday at age 77 of complications of leukemia, writes the San Francisco Chronicle.

A former president of Lehmann Brothers and co-founder of the private-equity firm Hellman & Friedman, Mr. Hellman was a major figure in San Francisco political and civic life, bankrolling ballot measures on issues such as homelessness and pension reform, funding the San Francisco Free Clinic, and helping to found the Bay Citizen, a nonprofit journalism site.

A music aficionado and amateur banjo player, he also launched Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, an annual free festival that draws major artists and hundreds of thousands of fans each summer to a section of Golden Gate Park that was recently renamed Hellman Hollow.