Donations to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Foundation have plunged by $11million (£8.7m) in the past year – sending it into the red – with boss and the couple’s right-hand man James Holt handed a massive 280% pay rise, it was revealed today.
The Sussexes have released their charity’s annual report and a glitzy promotional film showing their good works in 2023 – but it has also emerged that its finances have dived.
An income tax return filed in the US revealed today that in 2022 donations were down to just over $2million (£1.6m) – down from $12.9million (£10.3m) in 2021, an astonishing drop of $11million (£8.7m).
And 2021’s profit of $9million (£7.1m) has evaporated due to a lack of donations. The Archewell Foundation recorded a loss of $674,485 (£536,357) for last year because revenue was $2million but costs were $2.67million.
Last year there were only two major donors giving around $1million (£795,210) each. The year before an unidentified wealthy donor gave them $10million but there was no repeat in 2022.
It follows a tumultuous year for the couple, which saw Harry’s vitriolic memoir, Spare, top the bestseller lists but their personal popularity ratings tumble.
They were also the subject of ridicule by popular televisions shows such as South Park and Family Guy, lambasted after claims about a reportedly ‘near catastrophic’ car chase in New York and lost their lucrative podcast deal with Spotify, where one senior executive labelled them ‘******* grifters’.
The couple set up their Archewell Foundation after quitting the Royal Family and say it is an ‘impact-driven global nonprofit that puts compassion into action’ which is ‘committed to a simple but profound mission: show up, do good.’
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have released a video showing Archewell’s 2023 ‘impact’ – but their annual report also reveals that their foundation has recorded a loss
The foundation has filed its annual tax return showing donations have plunged (top set of circled figures) and a profit has turned into a loss (bottom, circled) – but they do still have cash in the bank
The foundation’s highest paid employee is Meghan and Harry’s right-hand man James Holt (right with the couple in their Netflix Invictus documentary). He was paid $227,405 a year ($180,835), including a $20,000 (£15,904) bonus
This section of the report shows two contributions of $1million each (£800,000) to Archewell
The Foundation employed five people, with salaries totaling $640,441 (£509,285) for the year. Harry and Meghan did not take a salary.
But executive director James Holt, considered the Sussexes’ right-hand man since Megxit, was paid $227,405 a year (£180,835), including a $20,000 (£15,904) bonus. This was around a $170,000 (£133,000) pay rise, up from his starting salary of $59,846 (£47,641) the year before.
Holt’s 2021 salary did not reflect a full 12 months of work because he joined in the middle of the year, it is understood.
Despite the loss in 2022, it appears that the foundation, described as a ‘non-profit’ organisation, still holds around $8.3milllion (£6.6m) in cash and assets.
The charity still has reserves available and an Archewell spokesperson contested Holt’s pay rise.
The spokesperson said the accounts showed the charity was doing well and managed its finances aptly and would likely have millions to spend each year.
High-profile foundations sometimes receive a large amount of funding in the first year which is then used over the course of several years. If a foundation already has a large amount of money in the bank this may lead them to reduce future fundraising.
Harry and Meghan have released a video showing Archewell’s 2023 ‘impact’ just hours after the Princess of Wales shared a clip of herself at a baby bank with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
The royal couple shared a one-minute clip showing people and causes their foundation has helped throughout 2023. They have shared similar videos in the past, but usually not until January.
This release, just hours after Kate was praised for the sweet footage of the Wales children at at Windsor baby bank, may now raise eyebrows in royal circles.
Perhaps in a bid to show they are a hands-on couple, the video shows them hugging veterans, packing bags for school girls in Nigeria and taking selfies with dozens of supporters.
It comes as brand experts have warned of the demise of ‘Brand Sussex’ following the fallout from Omid Scobie’s poison-penned book Endgame, which attacked the Royal Family and named Kate and King Charles as ‘expressing concern’ about Prince Archie’s skin tone before he was born.
The Duchess of Sussex recently signed with William Morris Endeavor (WME) mega-agent Ari Emanuel whose clients include Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Serena Williams and other A-Listers – but WME is reportedly having second thoughts.
The new slick video, certainly appears to be a bid to show the couple as global players, and put them both front and centre throughout.
The clip show’s Meghan Markle’s visit to a charity to help military families
The Wales children helped their mother and volunteers pick out donations and make boxes to go to children in need for Christmas. From left: Louis, Kate, George and Charlotte
It includes footage from Meghan’s visit to the Fisher House Foundation in Los Angeles, as well as the couple’s calls to entrepreneurs, visits to New York to speak at a mental health summit and a trip to the Marcy Lab School in Brooklyn throughout 2023.
It also shows workers rebuilding a playground in Uvalde, Texas, following a massacre that killed 21 – including 19 children – in 2022.
Another clip from August showed Harry and Meghan calling young entrepreneurs, to tell them initiatives they run received a share of $2million in grants.
Shiny footage also shows a glammed-up Meghan hosting a panel discussion at the World Mental Health Day Festival in what marked their first-ever in-person event for the Archewell Foundation.
It comes hours after the Princess of Wales shared a clip of herself with Prince George, Princes Louis and Princess Charlotte at a baby bank in Windsor.
The Wales children helped their mother and volunteers pick out donations and make boxes to go to children in need for Christmas.
While sorting through piles of donated clothes, George, ten, and Charlotte, eight, folded up items with their mother Kate.
But unlike his older siblings Louis, five, picked up and lobbed a T-shirt on to the neat pile.
Harry and Meghan also published a 25-page impact report alongside the video, with Meghan revealing she was inspired to do work with Archewell following her time in the Firm.
While a working member of the royal family, Meghan supported the Hubb Community Kitchen for women following the Grenfell Tower fire.
She now works for a similar group called the Welcome Project.
‘As with the Hubb Community Kitchen, The Welcome Project uses the power of food to bring people together,’ the report states.
The report also explains that the pair are ‘committed to a simple but profound mission to show up and do good’.
‘Our work, especially this year, has been rooted in fostering community and remaining responsive to those in need amidst the evolving challenges we encounter in today’s world.’
It explains the foundation has helped to provide 3,176 hours of trauma-informed mental health support to those in the earthquakes of Turkey and Syria, while also helping more than 2,500 girls in Nigeria receive menstrual products and health education.
Other achievements include supporting recently resettled Afghan women.
The shiny video may be a slick attempt to put Meghan and Harry on the global stage again.
Meghan recently appeared on the red carpet at Variety’s ‘Power of Women’ gala where she teased ‘exciting’ new projects for her and Harry. She also sat with two of LA’s most powerful women, one working for the Oscars and another high up at Universal Studios.
But Mark Borkowski, one of Britain’s most experienced crisis managers, has said he believes that Omid Scobie’s Endgame – and the royal race row it sparked – has ‘backfired spectacularly’ for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
He is also convinced that the farrago over the Dutch translation naming King Charles and Kate ‘was clearly a publicity stunt’, a claim Mr Scobie denies.
Mr Borkowski has said that Meghan’s Hollywood relaunch is ‘clearly not working’. He claims that her new talent agency WME may be considering dropping her after less than six months amid signs the ‘Hollywood machine’ has ‘probably had enough of them’.
He previously told MailOnline: ‘Something is beginning to unwind at the heart of Meghan and Harry. I think 2024 is going to be seismic, either because they’re going to do something to recover and find a new positive tactic or it’s going to be the undoing of the brand. It can only go one or two ways. It can’t stay where it is at the moment. Because it’s clearly not working’.
He said the couple’s brand could be ‘finished’ in the next year because they are viewed so negatively, in part because of the dignified silence from the Royal Family in the face of ‘constant’ attacks by the Sussexes and their allies.
He said: ‘We’ve see countless appearances of Meghan on red carpets. The story of her being back in play in Hollywood is is all about Meghan trying to return to her own turf and being available for work and getting back to Hollywood.
‘But I would suggest they are getting perhaps conveniently left behind by the Hollywood machine, who have probably had enough of them and enough of the negativity.
‘They’re hinting their big plans ahead, but you know, we’ve heard that all before. So they have to deliver something now’.
On rumours WME might drop Meghan he said: ‘I suspect this is in fact true. It just shows that constant erosion of the institution is not working.’
Brand and culture expert Nick Ede told MailOnline that Endgame could be as dangerous for her career as Spare – her husband’s memoir – was for Prince Harry, claiming her representatives in LA will be worried she has ‘tarnished her reputation and could potentially damage the reputation of her agency’.
Mr Ede believes Meghan could soon become ‘too hot to handle’ after two members of Harry’s family were named as being at the centre of the race row allegations in a Dutch version of the book. He also claimed that the silence from the Sussexes since the book came out makes Meghan look ‘guilty by association’, despite vehement claims by Mr Scobie, who is an ally of the actress, and her friends that she had nothing to do with the book.
Meghan and Harry paid their respect to troops in clip shown in the video, which showed them at the opening of a new veterans’ training facility in San Diego
Meghan Markle opted for a $1,490 Carolina Hererra cardigan – emblazoned with poppies – to meet with military veterans and their families at Camp Pendleton in San Diego
Mr Ede said: ‘The book written by Omid Scobie is potentially a career incendiary device for Meghan. Just as Harry’s own goal of a book has proved for him, the new book by Scobie unfortunately has fuelled a fire which many had thought would die down.
‘The issue for a huge Hollywood agent is that they will find it hard to navigate the career of Meghan fearing that more will come out over time and that, with court cases looming from her sister and potentially her father, she has tarnished her reputation and could potentially damage the reputation of her agency’.
Footage also shows the couple’s appearance at The Marcy Lab School in Brooklyn, which aims to prepare ‘young adults of colour for rewarding, wealth-generating careers in the tech sector’ within just one year of education.
Footage shows the duo posing alongside several students at the school, with the Duchess sporting black skinny jeans, a form-fitting black top, and a pair of Jennifer Chamandi heels — along with the letterman jacket that she received from a debate team at a school in the UK in March 2020.
Another clip shows the couple meeting with military veterans and their families at Camp Pendleton in San Diego.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined the Navy SEAL Foundation for the official opening of a new veterans training facility, known as the ‘warrior fitness programme’, ahead of Veterans Day on November 11.
Meghan and Harry’s Archewell Foundation has teamed up with the Nigeria-based GEANCO Foundation to support schoolgirls in the West African nation
As well as providing backpacks and other school supplies, Archewell and GEANCO are also providing period products
Another clip shows school girls in Nigeria receiving backpacks.
Archewell funded a project based in Nigeria called the The GEANCO Foundation, which provides school supplies and period products to girls and young women in the West African nation.
It came after the Duchess of Sussex bonded with Nigerian athletes at the Invictus Games after finding out she had Nigerian ancestry, and said she couldn’t wait to visit the country ‘for [her] mum and the kids’.
At the opening ceremony for the tournament, Prince Harry revealed that his wife would be lending its athletes her personal support after finding through a genealogy test that she is 43 per cent Nigerian.
In the subsequent days, she was seen hugging a competitor and describing her as ‘my Nigerian sister’, before being introduced to further members of the team and the defence chief, who gave her a nickname – Amira Ngozi Lolo – she could use if she ever visits the country.
Another clip shows Meghan on International Women’s Day visiting a homeless shelter for pregnant women, handing out essential supplies to expectant mothers on behalf of Archewell.
In a $4,000 black cashmere Max Mara coat worn over black cropped trousers and a black woollen sweater, Meghan and her team at Archewell distributed baby gifts.
