Archewell has made loss of £500k

[Viviennemary]

I don't quite get how those foundations work. But can't be great that It's made a loss of more than half a million pounds. Article about it in the Daily Mail.

The thing is, having large sums of money in 'reserve', either personally or in a company or not for profit, means you can invest and earn large sums from it until you need it. Most foundations have restricted and unrestricted funds. The only thing that interests me is whose money is it? This is a private foundation, it operates like any other foundation like it in the US. It is likely a combination of their own money, and one or two other wealthy donors perhaps. If the worst thing about it is their reserve funds far outweigh their current expenditure.. .I mean, I can't get upset about that. They're not taking £24 mil income from an estate that was stolen a long time ago and using unclaimed estates for a 'charity project'.

That's not right - you can gift your spouse/CP, registered charities and specified exempt organisations as much as you like. Other gifts may be taxable - though you can actually give as much as you like to whoever you want

Your personal exemption for gifts to anyone other than spouse or any non-exempt organisation is £3k.

And you can in some circumstances give more to children providing that it's a regular gift that comes from your current income (eg payments to support a DC at university)

What's it's formal name?

I've just tried to google, but getting lots of interference with the Princes Trust/Kings Trust renaming

And the only Jubilee Trust one I could fine was the Diamond Jubilee Trust - a grant-giving body which took 8 nearly years to spend all the money before it closed in 2020.

Is the jubilee trust you mean something to do with the platinum jubilee?

The DM HATE Harry and Megan so they are 100% going to paint them badly, without actually giving any credence to anything they do. They're not donating to GU, they're donating to a very specific program which they are perfectly entitled to.

I am not a Harry and Megan fan but, as a Brit who lives in the US, I really resent they're being ridiculed for what they do over here because they're trying to do good things against a tidal wave of media hate. That said, I really REALLY do not like Charles and am kind of embarrassed for you all that you're singing God Save the King so I may be more biased than I think 😂

Reserves for foundations ( which give money away as grants but don’t run projects themselves) are different from charities which run projects and are funded by these grants. In the latter you’d expect unrestricted reserves of 3-18 months depending on circumstances. For foundations it massively depends on their mission and how they’re funded- some are funded by a one off lump sum when someone dies or by a huge fundraiser to mark an event. In this case they get all the money at once and then there’s usually a written expectation about how long it will take to spend it. Sometimes it’s expected to continue in perpetuity- the lump sum is used as an endowment to generate investment income which is used for the grants. Some are quite short lived ( 5 years or so). Other foundations are funded on an annual basis and again may work on an endowment basis or a “ spend it in the year” basis. Some work on a budget basis ( common with corporate foundations) where they just get what they need for the year.

TLDR: The reserves/ loss for the year thing is misleading and just because accounting conventions aren’t really designed for these sort of vehicles. It’s very normal for foundations to have a lumpy income profile and for income/ expenditure not to “match off”.

The duchy one.

Thanks - found it

First look shows it spending more than its income, most assets are in long-term investments and my interpretation is that what it is spending is the income produced by the investments.

It's charitable aims centre on the preservation of historic buildings, advancement of faith (by maintenance of buildings and paying clergy stipends) and a catch-all anything else that's a charitable purpose.

Is the aim for this charity to be self-sufficient?

It's been around since 2001 so presumably was started by ER II (it's called the Duchy of Lancaster Jubilee Trust, not King's or Charles' which is probably why I couldn't find it). Looks like it was set up ahead of the Golden Jubilee

If you go to the thread of duchy of Lancaster, we have discussed this trust in detail, and that Bona Vacantia money is being used for private property of the Duchy. :)

Apparently they have issued a statement saying Archwell has millions in the bank. All good then 😂

Yes over £9 million in reserves, so thats great for the charities it supports.

They don't appear to have given much in donations

You have no idea where the donations have come from.