The Duke and Duchess of Sussex dropped two Christmas cards and a major update last Friday. The second card, the more personal, family card, was posted by Meghan on her Instagram, and it includes their two redheaded children, Archie and Lili. You still can’t see the kids’ faces, which is making the deranged community lose what’s left of their minds. But I’m still interested in the big announcement about the Archewell Foundation. The Sussexes are renaming and rebranding it, and it’s becoming Archewell Philanthropies. I wondered if this was merely a superficial name change or whether there was a larger strategy at play. Axios had some interesting info:
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are restructuring their charitable organization, the Archewell Foundation, and renaming it Archewell Philanthropies.
Why it matters: The organizational shift is the latest example of the couple’s tendency to pivot, following a pattern of initiatives that have been launched and then reworked or abandoned.
Under the new structure, the organization will maintain its tax-exempt status and adopt a fiscal sponsorship model, which allows the outsourcing of back-office functions while giving Archewell the flexibility to incubate or fund initiatives without setting up new nonprofits. This model will also allow the Duke and Duchess to do more philanthropic work globally by reducing administrative overhead and speeding up how money moves.
The organization, named after the couple’s eldest child Archie, was launched in 2020 as a social impact vehicle focusing on mental health and digital wellbeing. According to the latest filings, the foundation gave its largest grants to organizations like Women’s Wellness Space, NAACP Empowerment Programs, Inc., and the Markup News, Inc.
The Sussexes could expand their work further by investing in values-based companies or startups through a fund. The Duke of Sussex has historically prioritized companies that align with his personal values around mental health, like BetterUp.
“Adopt a fiscal sponsorship model, which allows the outsourcing of back-office functions while giving Archewell the flexibility to incubate or fund initiatives…” So it is a substantial change. If you couldn’t tell from Axios’ reporting, Archewell Philanthropies will be letting some staffers go in the restructure. The Daily Mail gloatingly reported that the Sussexes are firing three foundation staffers and obviously, this means that something something Archewell is in trouble! Nevermind that the British taxpayer-supported royals go through tons of staff fluctuations on a regular basis too (speaking of, whatever happened to the hunt for Kensington Palace’s CEO, huh??). The Sussexes’ spokesperson ended up speaking to People Magazine about the restructure, saying: “The move toward a fiscal sponsor operating model does mean that some staff redundancies are inevitable, particularly with junior admin roles. We will not be discussing these personnel details further, other than to say that we are honored to have worked with incredibly talented and caring people who dedicate themselves to helping others.” It… actually would not surprise me at all if Archewell has been overstaffed this whole time. Some commenters also suggested that restructuring will also give them more freedom to fundraise and diversify how they raise money.
Photos courtesy of Meghan’s IG and Cover Images.
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- Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex and Meghan Duchess of Sussex, during the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany. Featuring: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex and Meghan Duchess of Sussex Where: Dusseldorf, Germany When: 12 Sep 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex and Meghan Duchess of Sussex, during the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany. Featuring: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex and Meghan Duchess of Sussex Where: Dusseldorf, Germany When: 12 Sep 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan Markle attend day 4 of the Invictus Games at the Merkur Spiel-Arena in Dusseldorf Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Meghan Markle Where: Dusseldorf, Germany When: 13 Sep 2023 Credit: Dutch Press Photo/Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE NETHERLANDS OR FRANCE**
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- Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex during day 4 of Invictus Games 2023 at the Merkur Spiel-Arena in Dusseldorf. Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Meghan Markle Where: Dusseldorf, Germany When: 13 Sep 2023 Credit: Dutch Press Photo/Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE NETHERLANDS OR FRANCE**
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- The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the IG25 and Team Canada Reception at the Hilton Hotel during the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany. Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex Where: Dusseldorf, Germany When: 15 Sep 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
In general administrative overhead and operational is always the most expensive cost in a nonprofit. I really don’t see a problem with this. We are entering (if not already in a recession), this means charitable giving will decline. It’s not hard to see why they would restructure and become leaner. Even with their contacts, people will be giving less.
How dare they restructure and lose excess staff ! Foundations do this often the Sussexes are not the first but the gutter rats will jump on anything and spin the negativity. Hey gutter rats stop being bedmates to the royals and start spilling their tea! You will get many clicks.
“…. a pattern of initiatives that have been launched and then reworked or abandoned.”
I do not understand this narrative spin. It’s deranger-coded. What I see when I look at the history of Archewell is a list (relatively long given its recency) of impact-focused outreach. I see a helluva lot of *completion.*
Where is this ‘abandonment’? Am I wrong, am I blind?
I disagree because meghan recently said “I am allowed to make mistakes” which means mistakes were made. FWIW I think its was/is hard to gain footing with the silly british media attacking every single thing they do!
I mean one of the items that axios describes as abandoned is the Spotify deal & they also claim the Netflix deal is done so their reporting is suspect. I mean Spotify pretty much axed most of their podcast executives & changed the structure of their deals. But things that aren’t unusual in business are treated as glaring issues when it comes to H&M. The microscope on every aspect of their lives is unreal. If only politicians who actually impact people’s lives faced as much scrutiny.
When Meghan talked about mistakes I’d guess soft launching American riviera orchard was what she may have been referring to.
Seems like a normal thing to do. It’s likely that Archewell will be used as the vehicle for Harry to continue his work in HIV/AIDS. I’m excited to see what they do next year.
Utterly insane that Axios is paying attention to the restructuring of a small private family foundation at all.
It happens. Sounds like they’re looking for the best ways to still maintain their mission, and reduce overhead cost. We are in a recession regardless of what the talking heads want to say, which means that more people will require their services and less people will be giving money. They’re going to have to be innovative and earning money and keeping their costs down.
What’s always interesting to me is how basic industry stuff is always covered with this breathless reporting when it comes to the Sussexes. I’m sure as the end of year report comes out for a lot of foundations and charities you’ll see this restriction. But it’s only the Sussexes that it’s an indicator of severe failure.
I notice that change, development, or pivot, is always seen as “failure” where Harry and Meghan are concerned. They had to create something quickly because of their unique situation. They strike me as very responsive to the landscape of their philanthropy and charity, and constantly develop and organize to be the most effective, unlike the royal courts, whose main goal seem to be tradition, and continuity. Courtiers end up looking like they live under a rock, so unable are they to recognize the need to change or evolve. I don’t know much about the structure of foundations, but it’s clear to me that it’s some kind of structural change with legal implications and obviously staff briefs will change. They’re changing the structure of their organization, which gives it a new designation, but it’s still Archewell.
So they’re going to outsource some admin functions instead of doing them in-house. This seems eminently sensible because it will be cheaper and it sounds like the new structure will allow for more flexibility. Although yes, it’s a tautology that not doing things in-house means letting some in-house people go.
Where’s the problem?