The FT article is very even-handed (and yes, it’s a good choice of a newspaper to speak with to position yourself as aiming to take the higher ground). The passages below are interesting as to me they suggest what’s really going on here.
Chandauka said she had refused what she described as a request by the royal’s team to defend his wife, Meghan, in the media after negative coverage of her. “I said no, we’re not setting a precedent by which we become an extension of the Sussex PR machine,” she said.
She argued that the volatile public sentiment around Prince Harry since his move to the US and media fallout after the release of a Netflix documentary in 2022 and his book in 2023 had an impact on the charity’s ability to diversify its donor pool and make senior hires. “When you start to interview people, they’re asking questions about, well, these mixed messages around the patron,” she said.
A person familiar with the trustees’ account of events said: “The charity has been almost entirely reliant on the positive view of Prince Harry to raise funds.”
Harry set up Sentabale as a charity close to his heart - named for his mother and aiming to work with African orphans. But, like it or not, once properly established a charity is a separate legal structure and its management have a legal obligation to act only in its best interests. It’s not Harry’s personal fiefdom or PR tool.
It would be an entirely improper request of any charity to use its reputational capital on behalf of an unconnected person, like the founder’s wife. And if the reputation of the patron is causing difficulties in attracting funding, the charity should properly be thinking about what is in the best interests of the charity, not the best interests of the patron. Charities do take this step all the time - obviously Prince Andrew is the clearest example of this, but they do so for far lesser issues also. Martin Clunes was ditched as patron by an African wildlife charity after he was seen on tv rising an elephant. Boris Johnson and Christine Hamilton both had charities cut ties with them to do their controversial public images.
If potential donors were wary of Harry’s polarising public image then that is something a responsible board should have carefully considered. I can well see that that would not have gone down well with Harry, and he would have rallied his support on the Board to try and oust the person raising the issue rather than consider what was best for the charity.