72. How much money do Harry and Meghan give away?

Hey! Welcome to Spend Donate Invest! I’m your host, I go by GG, that’s short for Genet Gimja. And here we talk about our money and how we can align our personal values with what we’re doing with our money. This isn’t your typical personal finance podcast, I’m not coming in with some hot tips for you today on making more money. But I do hope to help with questions like “help, my 401K has a bunch of climate destroyers in it” or “help, I feel weird shopping at this store, because they donate to politicians who are working against my rights.” So these are big questions, and on this podcast, I hope to share realistic, practical suggestions to get you started on answering those questions in a way that makes sense for you. Episodes tend to be short and I will always include links so you can continue your exploration after the episode. The topics for each episode come from your emails! So you can reach me at spend donate invest at gmail dot com. What have YOU been thinking about?

A few months ago, I posted an episode about celebrity giving and y’all seemed to really be into it. And then a few episodes there was an episode, I think it might have been the one about Patagonia’s founder not really giving his company away and that led to a discussion about our relationship with billionaires and monarchies and well, I asked if you would be interested in an episode about Harry and Meghan and where they donate, and here we are.

In 2020, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle started the Archewell organization which includes their growing media businesses but also their foundation. For the rest of the conversation today I’ll call them Harry and Meghan Markle. Y’all I tried to find out Harry’s last name and I did not enjoy the rabbit hole. His son’s last name is Mountbatten-Windsor but it is unclear whether his dad Prince Harry also uses that last name, and I don’t want to assume. I’m not entirely sure what their culture is.

So Harry and Meghan Markle started this foundation in 2020 and it is definitely still in start-up phase. I say this because it is still a somewhat small organization with a small number of employees and their issue areas are all over the map. I really enjoyed doing the research for this episode. I started with a vanity fair article that I’ll link if you’re interested and then of course, I spent a lot of time pouring over their foundation’s website and then I spent quite a bit of time reviewing their tax forms which was available right on their foundation’s website. The tax documents were like 45 pages and the annual report was like 25 pages but don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you to sleep with too many details.

The highlights.Ok so Harry and Meghan Markle, first thing I saw was that they raised $13M in that first year. When I looked at the tax returns I could see that $10M came from one contributor and $3M came from another contributor but their names and addresses were redacted. So it doesn’t look like they were out soliciting money really, it looks like two individuals ponied up the money and they were ready to go.

They gave away about $3M in that first year. So that’s not quite a quarter of what they had raised. I’m not sure if that’s because they are trying to establish some kind of a endowment or if it is because they are still in the start up phase and haven’t quite settled on where and how they want to give away the money yet. Some day maybe there will be an episode on endowments, this is where a non profit is holding money back for the future. I myself am not a nonprofit executive, I have studied nonprofit management, I have provided consulting services to nonprofits before, but I am not a member of the industry so I definitely come at it from my own, outside looking in perspective. In general, you have heard my thoughts on wealth hoarding.

So when you look at the $3M that they gave away, the causes are all over the map. Covid vaccines, Afghan and Ukrainian refugee support. Financial backing for a dozen or so academic fellowships at Harvard relating to social media. They helped to pay for a new playground in Uvalde Texas after the horrific tragedy there. And then there’s even some work on toxic masculinity and challenging gender stereotypes, some mental health work, and even some support of tackling our problem of misinformation in today’s day and age.

So you can see why I said it is allll over the map so far. I wonder if they will pick a central issue and make that their main focus in the future. I know there are at least a few royal watchers listening so drop me a note and let me know what you think their philanthropic focus will be. I did see that they spent some money working with advisors so I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

I mentioned that I read the detailed tax forms and here’s what I learned.

The biggest donation that I saw on their tax form is the World Central Kitchen, they sent $300K that way, listeners in DC are probably familiar with Chef José Andrés. He does a lot of philanthropic work in our community and overseas. And he has some tasty restaurants. I did Christmas or New Year’s Day at one of his restaurants and really enjoyed it.

Second biggest donation was tied four ways. $250K to Harvard for those academic fellows at Harvard who are working on a 3 year research pop up on the topic of social media problems like misinformation, harassment, privacy issues, etc. Another $250K research on the impact of the pandemic on working women in the USA, $250K more research on the internet, and then $250K towards families evacuated from Afghanistan, I’m not completely clear on why the donation was routed through Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, rather than a nonprofit working directly with those families.

And then there are several smaller donations, I’ll just mention a few of them here, the NAACP, Color of Change which was founded after Hurricane Katrina, Shelter Ministries of Dallas, Girls Inc, Girls who Code, and more. If you subscribe to the newsletter, you’ll receive a link of all the places just in case you want to browse them and find a issue that fits within your values too.

So that’s a high level look at where Harry and Meghan Markle are donating, through their foundation. Any surprises? Anything else you want to know? Does this help you understand what you do and don’t want to do with your own giving?

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Links from today’s episode

Archewell Foundation Impact Report 2020-2022
https://archewell.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/The-Archewell-Foundation-Impact-Report-2020-2022.pdf
Vanity Fair Article
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2023/01/prince-harry-meghan-markle-archewell-foundation-raised-13-million-donated-3-million-new-hires