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About the Fund

Pen y Cymoedd Fund Announces New Monitoring & Evaluation Partner

We are excited to announce that, following many years of collaboration with Wavehill, Pen y Cymoedd Fund is entering a new Monitoring & Evaluation contract with People & Work. We want to thank Wavehill for their support, challenge, and insight since 2018 — your work has helped shape how we understand and evidence the difference the Fund makes.
 
At its core, our new Monitoring & Evaluation contract seeks a creative, collaborative partner who will help Pen y Cymoedd understand, evidence, and communicate the impact of the Fund across our valleys. The consultancy will explore change at multiple levels — from individual projects to wider community and system impact — asking questions such as:
  • What has been achieved?
  • How are communities and systems shifting?
  • What added value do we bring beyond funding?
  • How can we learn, adapt, and strengthen the Fund’s approach for the future?
 
People & Work will combine robust evidence with storytelling, co-production with communities, and practical recommendations that challenge us constructively and embed learning. People & Work brings over forty years of experience helping people and communities navigate change, from deindustrialisation in South Wales to recent economic and social challenges.
 
“We’re thrilled to welcome People & Work as our new Monitoring & Evaluation partner,” says Kate Breeze, Executive Director of Pen y Cymoedd Fund. “Their experience, ethos, and collaborative approach reflect our vision for the fund area and will help us capture not just the outcomes of our funding, but the wider change our Fund helps create.”
 
“We’re delighted to be working with Pen y Cymoedd as their new Monitoring & Evaluation partner,” says Dr Duncan Holtom, Head of Research at People & Work. “We share the Fund’s vision for the area, and its strong ethos of co-production, collaboration, and community investment. We have been working with communities in Rhondda and Cynon since the 1990s and we’re excited about the opportunity to work with Pen y Cymoedd, communities and other partners, to understand, evidence, and communicate the impact of the Fund.”

The Fund was established by energy company Vattenfall to benefit the communities hosting the Pen y Cymoedd wind farm across the upper Neath, Afan, Rhondda and Cynon Valleys. It exists to support local people, groups and organisations to invest in themselves, their ideas and their communities.

The Community Fund has a substantial annual budget that is index-linked, meaning it increases in line with inflation. As an example, this equated to around £2.5 million in 2025. The Fund will continue to support communities until 2043, creating long-term opportunities for growth, resilience and positive change.

The Fund is managed by an independent, locally based not-for-profit Community Interest Company. It is overseen by a Board of Directors with strong local connections and delivered by a small but dedicated staff team with extensive community engagement experience. We are here to help ensure the Fund delivers on the vision and priorities of local communities.

Over the next 10 years, the Fund is focusing on investment in people, places and businesses — helping the Valleys to thrive, driving bold ideas, supporting transformation and creating lasting impact for current and future generations.

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