Peter H. Pennekamp

Peter H. Pennekamp
September 15, 2024. Photographed by Maricela A. Wexler
Born	(1952-03-19) March 19, 1952 Oakland, California
Alma mater	California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt
Known for	Advances in the related fields of cultural equity and community democracy through award-winning public programs, and professional contributions to the arts, humanities, community organizing and philanthropy.

Peter Henk Pennekamp (born March 19, 1952) is an award-winning American public programmer, community advocate and organizer noted for advances in the fields of cultural equity and community democracy. His career is defined by contributions toward a democratically engaged, culturally and racially pluralistic society.

Participating in the cultural equity movement of the 1970s and 1980s, he held career positions at Humboldt State University, California (HSU), now Cal Poly Humboldt. There, he founded The Bridge (1976 to 1980) and proposed and organized (1980 to 1987) the performing arts center, CenterArts (now Cal Poly Humboldt Presents). He also held a career position with National Endowment for the Arts where he served as Director of the Interarts Program (1987 to 1989) and served as Vice President for Cultural Programming and Program Services with National Public Radio in Washington D.C. (1989 to 1993).

Moving to rural northern California in 1993, Pennekamp worked at the intersection of culture and grassroots democracy. He served as Humboldt Area Foundation CEO (1993 to 2012); senior advisor and research fellow to the Giving Practice at Philanthropy Northwest (Seattle) and founder of The Community Democracy Workshop of Philanthropy Northwest, which he started with collaborator Anne Focke and developed with Managing Director Garland Yates (2013 to 2018).

Early life

Pennekamp was born in Oakland, California on March 19, 1952, to World War II refugee parents. His father, Alfred "Henk" Pennekamp, was a member of the German resistance to Hitler along with his older brother Wilhelm (Willy). His mother, Marianne (nee Hockenheimer) Pennekamp was a German Jewish refugee. Alfred arrived in New York in 1940, and Marianne arrived with her family in 1941, when the couple met. Marianne, her brother Ralph and parents Jules and Lily were on the now famous hijacked voyage of the S.S. Winnipeg off South America.

Pennekamp’s sister Lynne was born in 1946 and died in a car accident in 1964. His mother Marianne attended Hunter College in New York City and received a full scholarship to pursue a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Social Work at UC Berkeley, where she received her PhD. She served as an instructor with a distinguished career in School Guidance at UC Berkeley, HSU, and in the Oakland, California Public Schools.

Pennekamp has a lifelong affiliation with Quakerism and Quaker practices of social responsibility and non-violent action, rooted in his mother’s families’ rescue from Marseille in Vichy France, in 1941 by the American Friend’s Service Committee and U.S. Consular Officer Highram Bingham IV.

Education and early career

Pennekamp went to HSU to study zoology in 1970, graduating Summa Cum Laude in psychology with an emphasis on social psychology in 1974.

Pennekamp acted as director of the HSU Y.E.S. Contact Crisis Intervention Center in 1974 and 1975, taught upper division seminars in social psychology at HSU in 1976 and 1977. In 1976, he started The Bridge, becoming fully engaged in developing public programs in the humanities, sciences, and arts with a focus on the “Third World Film Movement” that was underway at the time. The Bridge was one of four sites chosen by Ousmane Sembene, the Senegalese author and “founder of the African Cinema,” for his first visit to the United States, and the site that screened the West Coast premiere of his film, Ceddo. These programs coalesced with other campus programs into CenterArts, in 1980.

Public leadership

During his time in Washington D.C., Pennekamp served on steering committees for the Cultural Grounding conferences convened by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute in New York City, and Discipline Based Art Education and Cultural Diversity, a National Invitational Seminar Sponsored by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts. Pennekamp also helped launch the National Task Force on Touring and Presenting the Performing Arts, and was a panelist or speaker for the Smithsonian Institution, WGBH Boston, The Public Library Association, and the American Symphony Orchestra League among many other public engagements.

At Humboldt Area Foundation and Philanthropy Northwest, Pennekamp worked with community members and grassroots leaders who grew programs and policies for “on the ground democracy,” with attention to the complex challenges to effective philanthropy and governance. This drew invitations to participate in research and leadership at the Internews Network (now Internews) where he served as board chair, Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group, Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change, Chapin Hall (University of Chicago), University of Southern California Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy where he served on the Advisory Board, and the California Endowment where he served as an early trustee.

His paper with collaborating editor Anne Focke, Philanthropy and the Regeneration of Community Democracy, published by the Kettering Foundation in 2013 was widely reviewed across the political spectrum. In 2013, he also guest edited a special edition of the National Civic Review, Philanthropy and Resident Engagement: The Promise for Democracy.

Pennekamp participated in national and international leadership roles with allied organizations; as a founding board member of CFLeads, the national association of community foundations; strategic planning for the Internews Network; president of Grantmakers in the Arts; and board member and program committee chair of the California Endowment. His on the ground assessment of the international failure to prevent genocide in Timor Leste with Internews President David Hoffman, led to founding of the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD).

He has served on numerous policy panels including for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; California Council for the Humanities; California Arts Council; Independent Television Service (ITVS) Extended Play editorial group; private foundations including Ford, Rockefeller, Packard, and James Irvine Foundation; and the California Governor’s Broadband Task Force tasked with reducing the geographic digital divide in California. He was instrumental in supporting American Indian cultural leaders in the founding of the California Native Cultures Fund.

Awards and recognitions

Awards given to programs that Pennekamp played key roles in developing include a George Foster Peabody Award for Wade in the Water; a joint radio series of NPR and the Smithsonian Institution led by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon; a George Foster Peabody Award for Heat with John Hockenberry, created and produced by Murray Street Enterprises in partnership with NPR; Exemplary Contributions to the Arts in California from the California Arts Council; Distinguished Service Award from the National Endowment for the Arts; Friends Are Good Medicine Award from United Indian Health Services; and Distinguished Alumni Award from Cal Poly Humboldt.

He has been a frequent keynote speaker and panelist on culture, cultural evolution and grassroots democracy for associations and conferences nationally and internationally.

Influences, Peers and Mentors

Throughout his career, Pennekamp supported and learned from the work of cultural leaders. Foremost among them was Amos Tripp, Karuk Ceremonial Leader, and lead designer of the Native Cultures Fund; Garland Yates, community organizer and leader in community philanthropy; Bernice Johnson Reagan, Cultural historian, Smithsonian program director of Black American Culture, curator of music history for the National Museum of American History, and founder of the singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock; Marta Moreno Vega, founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute; Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, cultural historian and Chicano scholar; Lawrence Levine, historian; Michael (Thandiwe) Kendall, artist and arts educator for the Getty Center for Education in the Arts.

Publications

• Yates, G. (2018). The Promise and Challenge of Community Democracy (contributor). Philanthropy Northwest.
• Pennekamp, P. (Guest Ed.). (2013). Philanthropy and Resident Engagement: The Promise for Democracy. National Civic Review, 102(3).
• Pennekamp, Peter H.; Focke, Anne (2013-01-01). Philanthropy and the Regeneration of Community Democracy. ISBN 978-0-923993-46-7.
• Pennekamp, Peter H. (2013). "A Conversation with Emmett Carson". National Civic Review. 102 (3): 42–46. doi:10.1002/ncr.21136. ISSN 0027-9013. Retrieved 2025-09-13.
• Pennekamp, P., Cocke, D., & McGarvey, C. (2011). "New Paradigms of Artful Change." In Bridge Conversations: People Who Live and Work in Multiple Worlds (pp. 117–123). Arts & Democracy Project.
• Pennekamp, P. (2008). "The New Realities of Rural America." In Philanthropy and Rural America (Chap. 3, pp. 45–52). Council on Foundations.
• Pennekamp, P., Kubisch, A. C., Topolsky, J., Gray, J., & Gutierrez, M. (2008). Our Shared Fate: Bridging the Rural-Urban Divide Creates New Opportunities for Prosperity and Equity. The Aspen Institute.
• Pennekamp, P. (1991). "Ghosts." In Vega, M. M., & Greene, C. Y. (Eds.), Voices from the Battlefront: Achieving Cultural Equity (p. 159). Africa World Press.