The financials at the heart of Prince Harry's charity scandal

Sentebale's issues extend from the polo field to the boardroom

The co-founders page on the Sentebale site after the resignations of Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso (screengrab)

On Monday, March 24, Prince Harry walked away from his beloved Sentebale charity that he co-founded and which helps people living with HIV/AIDS in Lesotho and Botswana in Southern Africa. He'd fallen in love with Lesotho after spending time working there in an orphanage during his gap year after school. “The beautiful mountain kingdom feels like a home away from home,” Prince Harry told the UN. He’s gone back again and again, including in October 2024, his first visit in six years.

The prince resigned along with co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho and all five trustees. In a joint letter, the princes said:

Nearly 20 years ago, we founded Sentebale in honour of our mothers. Sentebale means ‘forget-me-not’ in Sesotho, the local language of Lesotho, and it’s what we’ve always promised for the young people we’ve served through this charity.

Today is no different. With heavy hearts, we have resigned from our roles as patrons of the organisation until further notice, in support of and solidarity with the board of trustees who have had to do the same. It is devastating that the relationship between the charity’s trustees and the chair of the board broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation.

Their fight is with Sentebale’s chair, Sophie Chandauka, who was appointed in July 2023. Chandauka also made a statement this week, in part:

Everything I do at Sentebale is in pursuit of the integrity of the organisation, its mission, and the young people we serve. My actions are guided by the principles of fairness and equitable treatment for all, regardless of social status or financial means.

There are people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people, and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct.

Discerning readers will ask themselves: why would the chair of the board report her own trustees to the Charity Commission? Why would the High Court of England and Wales accept her application to hear the matter at all if the case had no merit?

Well, because beneath all the victim narrative and fiction that has been syndicated to press is the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir [misogyny directed towards black women] and the cover-up that ensued. I could be anyone.

In a subsequent interview with the Financial Times, the chair alleged that the charity’s founders — Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso — “want to force a failure and then come to the rescue.” Harry’s representatives denied that allegation to the FT.

She also told the FT that “The number one risk for this organization was the toxicity of its lead patron’s brand,” further claiming to have received a request from Harry’s people to defend Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. “I said no, we’re not setting a precedent by which we become an extension of the Sussex PR machine,” she told the Financial Times.

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Sentebale’s work is focused in Lesotho and Botswana, which have some of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world. A look at what happened can be seen by looking at the 2022 annual report, which reported the charity’s best year in terms of income. Among Sentebale’s program highlights:

• “We delivered HIV/TB prevention programmes to 27,789 adolescent girls and young women across Lesotho”

• “3,377 adolescent girls and young women aged 15 to 24-years-old were screened for HIV testing and counselling services with 608 referred for follow-up post screening”

Chandauka wasn’t an unknown to the long-term leaders of Sentebale as she had previously been a trustee from 2009 to 2015. Until recently, she had the public backing of the charity’s royal co-founders. As Richard Palmer wrote in i Paper, “Publicly, they were equally supportive of the charity’s decision to broaden the focus of its work to addressing issues of climate change, inequality and youth health, and in December last year to shift decision-making from London to southern Africa.”

To get a better idea of the financials of the charity at the heart of this battle, I went to the official UK Companies House website to look at Sentebale’s annual financial accounts since its founding in 2006.

Those annual reports show that Sentebale has remained a small non-profit, given it has two devoted royal patrons and has been operating for nearly 20 years. In particular, its annual income has been effectively flat for the last decade, maxxing out at £4.55 million in 2022 before falling to £3.4 million in 2023.

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The 2023 report is the most recent available. In August 2024, Sentebale changed its accounting period from ending on August 31 to December 31, meaning it isn't due until September 30, 2025, according to Companies House.

In comparison, the King’s Trust in Britain, for which Charles III regularly fundraises, has grown from a tiny charity started in 1976 into the leading youth charity in the U.K.. It reported income of £71.1 million in 2024 and is building an endowment fund.

Looking at Sentebale’s 2022 annual report shows the longer-term issues facing the charity even as it recorded its highest income in years. The biggest concerns is that the charity depends on a few sources of income. Of Sentebale’s income of £4.6 million in 2022:

• Prince Harry made a one-time donation of £1 million (more precisely US$1.5 million) from the royalties of his memoir, Spare

• Fundraising events including an annual polo match — this time in Denver, with Harry playing — and a dinner raised £1.55 million

• £805,000 from institutional donors, including part of a new two-year grant of £2.5million from the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria “to address underlying causes of the HIV pandemic, as well as preventing new infections and improving HIV literacy”

For 2022, it spent £821,000 on fundraising. In 2023, that number had more than halved to £386,000.