Harry and Meghan doing alright in the US, continuing their universal service

[notanotheroneagain]

Have heard a few comments from panellists and commenters thinking that Harry somehow wants to come back to the UK?

I highly doubt this. I think they are doing more than ok in the US.

A pity a positive thread has been deleted regarding the podcasts, maybe the positive conversation can continue here?

In particularly I wanted to highlight the announcement that they will be recipients for the Robert J Kennedy Human Rights award.

“When The Duke and Duchess accepted our award laureate invitation back in March, we were thrilled. The couple has always stood out for their willingness to speak up and change the narrative on racial justice and mental health around the world,” Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and Robert F. Kennedy's daughter, said in a statement shared today. “They embody the type of moral courage that my father once called the ‘one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.’”

Thank goodness she is in the US then. I think the British people would do well to remind themselves that she is no longer trying to appeal to the British public. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn't give a rats ass what the British people think.

All well and good. Can’t fault your logic. Except she’s literally married to a British Prince, the son of the King. I haven’t seen her nor her husband renounce their titles or their entitlement to British royalty (far from it!). They would shoot up huuuuuuugely in my and many people’s estimation if they did!

Charles should have sent his message in August/ September then instead on just recently?. Fortunately most Nigerians are not preoccupied with critiquing him or his daughter in law for being saddened by the suffering caused by the floods.

Things just work differently in the US. Who knew?

Yes, I agree that charities operate in very different ways and under very different rules. Having worked for UK charities that have to be very open with their incoming funding and outgoing expenditure, I was surprised at the rules in the US and wonder if they don't make the public more sceptical about donating. (Not talking about Archewell which is a foundation so I don't think it takes public donations. I don't think so, anyway.)

I just went back and checked. Meghan paused the podcast the week of September 11th and resumed October 4th.

Another example of she cant win.

She announces it during the national morning period and she is a monster. She waits to announce it in October, she is a monster.

Not at all. I've said that it's understandable why they didn't announce a donation, if they'd made one, during the 11 days of mourning. Certainly neither of them are monsters for making a charitable donation.

But why does the donation have to tie in with a podcast? Surely it's noteworthy on its own?

I don't know what messages Charles has sent. I'm not criticising Archewell for donating money. Ypu won't find anything I've said on this thread or any other where I'm critical of them donating money. I always credit them for doing that.

What I am dubious about is co-ordinating Save the Children and Spotify to use the donation to publicise her podcast. You say that you understand what I'm saying but it doesn't bother you. Which is fine. It does sort of bother me.

"it’s self-serving enrichment under the guise of altruism"
@Suemademedoit you hit the nail with the sentiment here

And you are asking lots of interesting questions here

As @Readinginthesun said, whingefest incoming!

@Marulatree I would never judge an entire country based on a handful of people.

So I was interested in more information about Archewell Foundation and the donations being made, so I had a look around. This is very preliminary, so I do not know what it translates to, but I have an idea.

(Please bare with me because this is going to take me a while look research and I will be sleeping while you are awake in the morning. Plus I am rambling in my American English)

Archewell Foundation is not a charity. It is a non-profit. Huge difference. What I have found is that Archewell does not make donations, they work in grants. You can not donate money to Archewell like you would other charities. They are non profit because all the money they bring in, they pay out in the form of operating costs or grants. It is not income for the foundation, so no (or minimal) taxes need to be paid.

Something to point out is that a NPO can work politically while a 501c3 has strict limitations in regards to political work. So it makes sense to me why they wouldn't register a 501c3 charity. You can not work for women's and minority rights rights and remain a-political IMO.

Now the question is, where is the foundation getting it's money? I will ASSume they get it from the business side of Archewell. Almost all corporations in the US donate to causes as a write off to offset corporate income tax. The same reason why smaller corporations in the US register in Delaware and why large corporations in the US (#1 offender in the US? Apple) register in Ireland. So they do not have to pay the taxes they should be paying.

Archewell Business side donates to the NPO, which gives it all away via grants. It is win-win in that Archewell limits corporate income tax within the confines of the law and charities benefit from a cash inflow.

(This is US corporate law and not of Meghan and Harrys doing. ALL corporations in the US do this and until Congress can figure out how to fix the broken system, it will be used. Just like how each individual who pays taxes in the US have deductions they are allowed to use at tax time. We all try to limit our taxable income to keep as much money in our own pockets so we can pay or heating bills)

We will not know where the Foundation is getting the money until they file their taxes AND the IRS processes them. the IRS has a huge backlog right now so corporate taxes can take a bit of time. the Foundation will have to file a 990, so it will become public record at some point.

I also want to point out that, based on some wording on the website, it looks like the Foundation also supports chosen causes by Meghan and Harry by using thier "star power?" to help that charity raise funds. So in some cases, the charity is not receiving money from Archewell, but Archewell is helping them raise funds.

This would explain why Spotify and STC would announce the donation made. Celebs in the US are always pitching for charities. Corporations are always pitching for charities. And when they do, donations from joe schmo's like me tend to increase.

This may not happen this way in the UK, and it may not make sense to the British public, but this is all normal in the US and all within the rules of the IRS. You seriously do not want to cross the IRS in the US, they will take you down when all other avenues have failed. RICO laws are a bitch. Especially since they are hiring 78,000 or something new agents right now.

As for this particular donation to STC for Nigeria, it doesn't matter when she made it. On the podcast she said she completed her DNA genealogy a "couple of years ago" and found out she was Nigerian.

Here is what we dont know:

Was the donation made from the foundation? Unlikely since the foundation works in grants and is a NPO not a charity.

Was it made from the business side of Archewell? Possibly. It would still be a tax limitation for the corporation.

Was it made from Meghan and Harry's pocket? Possibly but doubtful. She could have made the donation and then decided to attach it to the Archewell name, and announce it on the podcast, in order to raise awareness of Archewell. The more people who know of Archewell, the more future support they could receive from other corporate donations, which helps those awarded grants from the Foundation.

So I learned a lot here, but the main take away is that Archewell is NOT a charity. It does not run like a charity and is not required to follow the same rules that a 501c3 charity does. The money they are taking in is not from donations but from profit from the business side of things.

Now can we please go back to bitching about other Meghan crap and let them give money to the charities they chose without blasting them for helping people in this way?

Although still not really understanding the set up , thanks to @onlylarkin for such a detailed post.

What I am dubious about is co-ordinating Save the Children and Spotify to use the donation to publicise her podcast. You say that you understand what I'm saying but it doesn't bother you. Which is fine. It does sort of bother me.

You seem stuck on this point, and I think you are getting things twisted. The podcast is already one of Spotify's top podcasts, as confirmed by the company. It seems that they used the podcast to garner more coverage for the donation drive for the disaster. Clearly someone at either Spotify/Archewell/StC, upon hearing that MM has disclosed her Nigerian roots, took advantage of publicising H&M donation in the hope of raising awareness and pulling in more donations - most likely MM's idea. Save the children has a lot of charity drives, and could use as much coverage as they can for donations.

Someone misquoted me and said, I had said it was a bit of flooding at the beginning. When I was clearly referring to the media coverage. I watch the news daily and the Nigerian floods did not get as much coverage as they should have, considering the scale. What I remember is lots of coverage of the Pakistan floods, but not the Nigerian floods.

Even KC only sent his sympathies last week. Those who want to scrutinise MM's donation, I presume also scrutinised how much KC donated and will tell us the amount soon? Or were his donation his sympathies.

Thanks @onlylarkin .

I don't know why people try to make a big deal or dodgy about the Delaware thing. It simply means the foundation has more money to give out to who they want. Completely different to personal finances in the Caymans.

They did release their finances and much was made about them not having much money. But it was the first year - set up costs, and they did donate a lot via grunts etc.

I think with the scrutiny H&M do well not to publicise all the sponsors or contributors to Archewell. All we need to know is that they are not taking from Joe Bloggs off the street (us plebs).

I don't know why people try to make a big deal or dodgy about the Delaware thing

People make a big deal of this type of thing because the actual outcome from these types of operations is that the originators of the funds and charities suddenly become extremely wealthy over a very short period of time. It really is as simple as that. You can go back and forth arguing about the minutiae of the legalities of this and that but, at the end of the day, all we see is individuals who were not wealthy suddenly become wealthy indeed, often to the tune of millions/billions, after setting up a charity, a fund, a not-for-profit or whatever they decide to call it. I am amazed that some (not all) people accept this as normal. It's just a business and the product is altruism. They are literally selling altruism and hope for profit.

What ?
You simply cannot tar everyone with the same brush !
You find out the exact person who is doing the bad did and you point it out. What? do you also tar the rest of the RF with the same brush as Andrew because he's part of that family?

Thank goodness she is in the US then. I think the British people would do well to remind themselves that she is no longer trying to appeal to the British public. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn't give a rats ass what the British people think.

It was her association with Britain that made her relevant. She is also welcome to pay the taxpayer back for the £30m 'fake' white wedding.

This 'angry black woman' podcasts is quite interesting to me and seems to directly link to MM's experiences.

How everyone readily believed that she made Kate cry, then were sceptical when MM set it straight, instead of just accepting it like they did when MM was narrated as the offending one.

I also think this trope is the reason why some will readily accept JK's account that she was bullying, despite there not being any victims willing to come out with accusations.

twitter.com/Mimicinque/status/1585008496483110913

i think people were sceptical about M’s version is because she has a loose relationship with the truth . I am sure you don’t need me to list examples .
My view is that The RF/ Firm are biding their time . There will be a line that H and M cross ( maybe his memoir) and the gloves will be off . I firmly believe that the bullying report will be published/ leaked at some point .
Am I the only one who is sick of H and M playing the victim card ?

Croque I agree it would be nice if M&H could repay the UK taxpayers £30M costs of the wedding they didn't want.

“With every deflection, every question dodged, every piece of “evidence” flagrantly and baldly denied, every snide riposte to an uncomfortable truth, I feel more and more distressed. If some posters on this thread have their own, opaque reasons for posting in such a blindly munificent way about H&M under the guise of weeding out racist posters and standing up for black or biracial women or bullied women, they set back the cause inversely proportionately.”

If spirited (misguided or not) defence of someone makes you feel that the cause of fair and equitable treatment for all citizens in a society has been set back because it makes you uncomfortable and resistant to make the changes in society to enable this - you were not really interested in the cause to begin with.

I can absolutely say that Google did have these autofills and I’m glad they’ve changed them

@onlylarkin I’m pleased to hear it. I’m also delighted that H&M are doing so well in the US, suggesting they were right to make the move. I doubt they would ever look back.

It is the foundation donors who provide the money. Not Meghan herself.

Not Meghan personally, that should say.

Thoughts she may have provided some funding.

sorry, keep pressing send too soon.