Katy Woodington on Her MBE Award and a Career in Community Investment

Honestly, I was really surprised and amazed that someone had taken the time and effort to nominate me. When I got a letter from the Cabinet Office, my first thought was ‘what have I done wrong?’. On a more serious note i’m deeply honoured to receive this recognition, which reflects the efforts of our team, the voluntary sector partners we work with and the volunteers who deliver positive change in their communities.

Early on, one of the most important decisions I made was to work in partnership with trusted, local voluntary-sector grant makers to help administer our community funds. That choice has had a huge influence over the impact that is being delivered by the £170 million of funding from our operational renewable energy projects.

We’re incredibly lucky to work with so many brilliant third-sector organisations across the country. They support our community panels, free up their time for strategic thinking and decision-making, and make funding simpler and more accessible. They also encourage partnership working and help unlock match funding. Many of these organisations are now leading the way in how community benefits are evolving, helping communities come together to plan and deliver some of their most ambitious and challenging ideas.

Consistently championing the power of local, grassroots decision-making has been the strongest thread running through my career, internally, locally and nationally. I’ve been very fortunate to help build and shape RWE’s approach to supporting communities around our renewable energy sites, and to play a role in influencing wider industry guidance and best practice.

I’m especially proud to have helped ensure that funding from renewable energy projects remains a genuinely unique opportunity for local people to have real agency over how their communities are supported.

The benefits show up in so many different ways. Sometimes it’s the smaller projects that matter most - the ones that struggle to attract funding elsewhere, or just need a bit of support to get started.

Increasingly, we’re also seeing communities use funding to think more strategically about the future and how to build long-term resilience and community wealth. That includes supporting community shops, rural transport schemes and other initiatives that make a real, practical difference to everyday life.

Launching RWE’s first large-scale community fund - £19 million over the lifetime of the Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm - was a real career highlight. Not just because of the impact it delivered, but because of everything we learned from it and have since applied across our wider portfolio and shared with the industry.

It really became the early blueprint for how we approach community funding at scale. We listened to hundreds of local people and stakeholders when developing the fund’s themes and criteria, and it was the first time we worked with our internal procurement team to run an open tender for a fund administrator. The result was a flexible fund that supported hundreds of projects, secured millions in match funding, created and safeguarded jobs, and opened up volunteering, education and training opportunities. Those experiences even helped shape the Irish Government’s approach to offshore wind farm community funding.

It was a real privilege to bring community partners, panel members and groups we’ve supported from across the UK to Westminster, and give them the opportunity to speak directly with politicians and the DESNZ (Department for Energy Security & Net Zero) community benefits team. Hearing first-hand from communities about their experiences - and their ideas for how renewable energy projects can genuinely benefit local people - was incredibly powerful.

In a year where there’s been a lot of political focus on community benefits, it felt especially important to create that space. It helped ensure policymakers had a deeper, more grounded understanding of the realities communities and industry are working within, and it really showed the value of bringing everyone together to listen, learn and shape better outcomes collectively.

It’s always hard to single one out, but a recent grant that really sticks with me is the support we gave to Angle in the Community. Their volunteers have turned a simple passion into a powerful way of engaging vulnerable young people and others facing mental health challenges and addiction. What stayed with me most was hearing one of their participants, who has autism, explain how sitting side by side on a fishing peg -focusing on the fishing rather than a formal conversation - created the perfect environment to connect. It was a great reminder that when funding is placed in the right hands, even a really small grant can make a genuinely life-changing difference.

For me, it all comes back to people. There are so many talented, committed individuals driving renewable energy projects - from large commercial developments to fully community-owned schemes and everything in between. Even in challenging economic and political times, I’m confident they’ll find ways through.

While our programmes provide the funding, it’s local people who turn that money into real impact. Seeing the energy, creativity and determination that communities bring to that challenge, time and time again, is what gives me real optimism for the future.

I’d say three things. First, really listen - and remember that every community is different, with its own people, challenges, ambitions and opportunities.

Second, be flexible. A one-size-fits-all approach rarely works, and flexibility almost always leads to better outcomes.

And finally, never underestimate local communities. They may sometimes struggle with capacity, but they’re also full of people with skills, ideas and a real desire to make things better.