[1] Pennington is celebrated for leading the launch of the five-year, $5 billion BUILD initiative which invested in the sustainability and capacity of 300 social justice organizations around the world.

In her interviews with several media sources, she has mentioned that witnessing the inequality of apartheid in her father's home country of South Africa helped shape her lifelong passion for social justice.

[2] As Executive Vice President, Pennington oversees all programs, in the U.S. and globally, for the Ford Foundation, a social justice philanthropy with a $13 billion endowment and annual grantmaking of $600 million.

During her time as program vice president, she led the foundation's work on arts and culture, documentary film making, journalism, and youth leadership.

Bush and Bill Clinton, and, along with Arthur White, co-founded Jobs for the Future, a research, consulting, and policy-development organization, which as of 2020 operates in 46 states.