Hey, does William and Kate's charities have similar problems: The Royal Foundation, United For Wildlife, Earthshot, Homewards, Early Childhood Center?
I don't know. We don't hear about their organizations missing deadlines for reports, paperwork, and filings, so I'm inclined to say no - the Waleses don't have a recordkeeping or a documentation problem the way the Sussexes do.
So we can really only look at what the charities are doing and producing. And what I found is that the way William and Kate have set everything up, these are not separate charities; the Royal Foundation is the charity and United for Wildlife, Earthshot, Homewards, and the Early Childhood Center are programs operated by the Royal Foundation. That's a perfectly normal set-up.
But what that means is there's only one annual report to look at for the financials: the annual report for the Royal Foundation.
For the Royal Foundation, they report £2 million decrease from 2022 donations to 2023 donations, and they also report a similar decrease in expenses from 2022 to 2023.
Where the Royal Foundation's report differs from the Sentebale report is that they actually discuss the £2 million loss in donations; it's because the Royal Foundation received a restricted £2 million gift in 2022 specifically for Earthshot. Restricted gifts are tracked a little differently year-to-year.
(Really quick: a restricted gift means the donor directs where the money goes. An unrestricted gift means the organization decides where the money goes.)
It is interesting that their expenses dropped that much too from 2022 to 2023. The annual report discusses how a significant portion of the 2022 expenses were part of the Earthshot spin-up, and that those costs have stabilized beginning 2023.
For me, I need to see the 2024 report to tell if the Royal Foundation is losing donors like many other charities are. I suspect they are, and the Royal Foundation's report even has the same "going concern" statement where they talk about economic downturn affecting the donations and fundraising. But at the same time, I don't think the loss in income for the Royal Foundation is as consequential as other charities' because it's William and Kate.
It will also be interesting to see what happens to their expenditures too. Do they continue to decline? If so, then I would say that's a strategic choice by the Foundation and good financial stewardship with declining donations and fundraising. But if they reverse and expenditures go up, then I would say that's likely due to inflation and rising costs, and if it's paired with declining donations, then the Foundation could eventually be in trouble.
(But I think the difference there is William has plenty of his own cash that he could inject his own savings to help the Foundation balance its books, the same way that others do. But the problem there is that it's not a viable long-term solution. (I do think it's offset by the fact that the Royal Foundation is William and Kate and as William inches closer to the crown, it'll be easier to find new donors, whether it's big millionaires and billionaires making one-time donations (like the 2022 Earthshot donation) or whether it's many, many more donors making smaller donations (like what happened with their Wedding Fund).
Now if you wanted to dig into the financials for each of the programs, then you absolutely can. The Royal Foundation annual report does talk about the financials for each one, but in high-level nuts-and-bolts summaries. There are no separate worksheets or ledger accounts where you can track line by line.
For me, the differences between the Royal Foundation and SussexRoyal/MWX/Archewell is for two reasons.
The Royal Foundation seems to be more professionally managed and led, with William and Kate letting experts run the show day-to-day while they advise and do their thing while it seems like Meghan runs the show day-to-day for the Sussexes while the experts advise.
There's more scrutiny on the Sussexes' foundation. The Royal Foundation also has a lot of scrutiny, but they're also flying a bit more under the radar, and I attribute that to the Sussexes being here in the US where there's a little more transparency in the paperwork and filing processes because of disclosure laws, whereas in the UK, the Royal Foundation is very much under the BRF umbrella and that protects them from some scrutiny.
Also, don't get me wrong - Earthshot, United for Wildlife, Homewards, the Center are producing reports about their works and activities. You can find these reports on their individual websites. They just don't have their own separate financials because it all comes through the Royal Foundation.
I think that's a good way to have set things up. It limits how many people are touching the money, and usually the more hands that are in the pot, the more potential for fraud and theft. It also means that when these programs launch specific projects - like the Early Childhood Center's pilot for the distress alarm - then there has to be a strong proposal with solid justification for the Royal Foundation to disburse the money. So it's like an extra check and they're just not giving money willy-nilly to pet projects.
Here is the Royal Foundation's most recent annual report, for calendar year 2023:
Also a big congratulations to Amy Pickerill, who had a baby in 2023! The annual report cites that she was on maternity leave for most of the year.
