When I first visited Lesotho with Prince Harry soon after the inception of his Sentebale charity in 2006, the young royal couldn’t hold back his excitement at what he hoped to achieve.
Having set it up in memory of his late mother Princess Diana (sentebale means ‘forget-me-not’ in Lesotho’s language), Harry’s pride that he had managed to get this deeply personal project off the ground was clear to see. It was difficult not to be won over by his passion.
Showing myself and a group of other journalists around a dusty, rubble-strewn piece of wasteland that was to become Sentebale’s first centre for children impacted by HIV and Aids, Harry repeatedly asked me: ‘Do your editors get what I am trying to do here? Do they understand?’
It was one of the earliest examples of how the self-dubbed ‘spare’ was intent on doing things his own way rather than following the royal tradition of taking on patronages of well-established charitable organisations.
But, as the Charity Commission warned, while ‘passion for a cause’ is the bedrock of what keeps the sector going, when things go wrong it is often because that passion has become ‘a weakness rather than a strength’.
Prince Harry, Meghan and Sophie Chandauka pictured at a polo match benefitting Sentebale in April 2024
When Harry launched Sentebale in 2006, pictured on the launch visit, his pride that he had managed to get this deeply personal project off the ground was clear to see
Indeed, that seems to have been the tragic case with Sentebale after a very public row over its governance exploded in March.
At the time, the Duke of Sussex and a number of trustees (many of whom, including his ‘second father’ Mark Dyer, are his close friends) resigned after a dispute with the organisation’s chair, Sophie Chandauka.
She fired back, accusing Harry of presiding over a culture of racism, misogyny, ‘misogynoir’ (sexism faced by black women) and bullying ‘at scale’ in a TV interview.
The Charity Commission said it had found ‘no evidence’ to support her allegations in an investigation. But both sides were criticised for letting the ‘damaging’ boardroom battle play out in the ‘public eye’.
If that was supposed to clear things up, it’s done anything but. The former board of trustees issued a stinging statement, saying the watchdog had ‘chosen to ignore key concerns and irrefutable evidence’.
Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon, Sentebale suggested it may yet take further action – pointing out that the watchdog had admitted it did not have the power to investigate specific allegations of bullying or misogyny against individuals.
The saga has now resulted in such bitterness between the two camps that many – including the prince himself – are privately predicting that the charity will not survive the fall-out.
Harry, I am told, is ‘utterly devastated’, spending hours on the phone from California to supporters late into the night raging about a ‘hostile takeover’ of his ‘life’s work’.
But many – including Prince Harry – are privately predicting that the charity will not survive the fall-out. Prince Harry with Sentebale co-founder Prince Seeiso in Lesotho in 2015
The prince and his friends believe ‘Ms’ Chandauka – they won’t even use her honorary title of doctor, such is the depth of their animosity – cajoled her way to a position of power and influence.
They claim she would rather see the charity ‘go down in flames’ than admit she is guilty of mismanagement and resign. ‘She shopped them all to the Charity Commission when the trustees raised their concerns about the charity’s governance,’ alleges a source.
They say that Harry had personally tried to mediate between her and the trustees, and when that was rejected even offered to bring an independent firm of lawyers to help. They also allege that Harry was not given the opportunity to submit a statement to the watchdog’s inquiry, despite the very personal nature of the claims made against him.
One source close to the prince told me yesterday there was ‘no way in hell’ he would ever work with Sentebale again – ‘or at least not while Sophie Chandauka and her new stool pigeons [new trustees] were in place’.
What’s more, while the prince is weighing up his options over what to do next, they said if he were to set up a charity again he ‘would categorically not do it under the jurisdiction of the Charity Commission for England and Wales which he has no faith in and would go as far to say that he believes isn’t fit for purpose’.
The commission, let us remind ourselves, is the Government’s independent regulatory body – and we all know, after his decisive loss in the Court of Appeal over his UK security arrangements earlier this year, what he thinks of such official bodies. Another ‘establishment stitch-up’, no doubt.
Of course, the eloquent Dr Chandauka, a Zimbabwean-born lawyer, offers a very different version. Recollections, to quote a now well-worn phrase, really do vary. Back in March, she said she took on the role of chair after serving as a charity trustee with the best of intentions and seemingly felt that the charity, regardless of the good intention at its inception, had become a personal ‘fiefdom’ for Harry and his pals.
Many charitable organisations, particularly in developing areas of the world, have been struggling practically and financially, particularly as a result of the Covid pandemic.
She said she wanted to make Sentebale’s work and governance more Africa-centric, and develop professionally-driven sources of funding rather than the occasional charitable polo match organised by the former royal and his mates – such as the awkward 2024 event where Dr Chandauka was asked to move around Harry and Meghan on the podium.
Sentebale’s chair went where many have feared to tread in her accusations – adding that his public image was so toxic after his acrimonious departure from the Royal Family that it was actively putting off donors and supporters.
The prince and his friends believe Ms Chandauka cajoled her way to a position of power and influence, writes Rebecca English
She said Sentebale needed to make clear, for its very survival, that it was not just an extension of his private endeavours.
Sources I have spoken to in recent days say she is traumatised by what has happened and has been working desperately hard to ‘support’ the charity.
They point out that it was Team Harry who fired the first public salvo, speaking to The Times back in March to put out their version of events. Dr Chandauka, they say, was only reacting to that broadside when she went on television herself.
Regardless of whose side you’re on, there’s no doubt many who have taken an interest in the crisis feel a frisson of pleasure at seeing Harry being given a taste of his own medicine.
The biter has become the bit, forced to deal with the same sort of accusations he has thrown at his own family over the past few years.
And the prince has learnt to his cost, such slurs are powerful for a reason. This stuff sticks. Sentebale needs to file its public accounts by the end of August and many on Harry’s side openly predict they are likely to show it has financially ‘tanked’.
Only time will tell but, if true, there are no winners in that. Not Harry, and certainly not the charity that works to help some of the poorest and most disadvantaged young people in the world.
It’s difficult to shake the feeling that when it comes to the Duke of Sussex, however admirable his intentions, a trail of toxicity is always left in his wake.
As someone determined to create a legacy as a global philanthropist, how on earth is he to come back from that?
