The British royalist girls are FIGHTING! It’s wild to see this Sentebale catastrophe play out. Sophie Chandauka is doing everything she can to parrot all of the most deranged royalist talking points, and many British outlets have been doing the most to use her words to drag Prince Harry. But there’s been a hell of a lot of fight-back from the now former Sentebale trustees and Team Sussex too, I’m guessing. Now the royal reporters are doing some actual reporting on what Chandauka was doing in her less than two years as Sentebale’s chairwoman, and how much money she was wasting on bullsh-t “consultants.”
The chair of Prince Harry’s charity has spent more than £400,000 on consultant fees since she took on the post in July 2023.
Sophie Chandauka has been involved in a bitter war of words after several trustees, including the Duke of Sussex, resigned from Sentebale, the charity Harry founded in honour of his late mother. Chandauka has now shut down her social media accounts amid allegations of online bullying by racist trolls. She was called a “fraud” and accused of “jumping on a bandwagon of hate” by users professing to support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. A spokesman for Sentebale said: “Dr Chandauka deleted her Twitter account due to the proliferation of online bullying.”
In total, between June 2023 and January 2025, the organisation spent £427,497 on media and website consultants, a higher expenditure than during previous years. It is understood that the board at the time signed off on the expenditure. The highest bill was for £185,000, which was paid to Lebec, a “woman-led strategy firm” founded by Alix Lebec, a former asset manager who has held leadership roles at the World Bank, the Clinton Global Initiative and Water.org. A source said that Lebec “convened a reception, panel discussion and intimate dinner” at the Zaytinya restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton on Miami’s South Beach in April last year to “highlight Sentebale’s impactful work”.
At the event, Alix Lebec was seen sitting alongside Harry and Chandauka in a panel discussion entitled “Potential is waiting”. Harry told guests at the Florida event that “Africa is in my heart and Africa is in my soul”. One of the guests at the dinner was Iain Rawlinson, who was appointed as a new trustee last week. Rawlinson — who on Sunday was seen sitting next to Chandauka as she told Sky News that the organisation was responsible for “harassment and bullying at scale” — has also been paid by the charity. He received £24,000 for his consultancy services and is said to be owed a further £66,000.
The Miami event was followed by an event in Johannesburg in October. The second event featured a panel discussion moderated by Chandauka and featuring Harry, Alix Lebec, Stacey Boyd, founder and chief executive of Olivela, a luxury retailer that raises money for girls’ education, and Hector Mujica, a Google executive. The event was organised “with strategic advice from” Lebec and Iain Rawlinson of Rawlinson Partners, the charity said at the time. Global Philanthrophic, a fundraising consultancy where Rawlinson had served as both the director and chair, also received £21,600 from Sentebale during this period.
Sarah Essien, a consultant who is reported to have worked closely with Chandauka at Morgan Stanley, was paid £41,451. Another consultant, Dawn Whyte, who worked at the Black British Business Awards, which was founded by Chandauka in 2014, received £26,110 during this period. Other payments included £46,124 to MM Media Consultant and £12,114 to an unnamed website consultant.
Such high spending on consultants is understood to have created tension within the organisation as it made a “transformation” to shift its focus towards Africa. A source close to the situation said: “All of a sudden there were huge amounts being spent on consultants and there didn’t feel like there was anything to show for it. It was hoped that they would bring in lots of fundraising but that didn’t happen. To spend nearly £500,000 on consultants at a charity that raises around £1.5 million a year seemed ludicrous. When a deal with a potential donor fell through in December, many of the trustees began to think that her strategy wasn’t working.”
A Sentebale spokesman said: “In November 2023, Sentebale engaged Lebec and its team of six consultants to provide tools and strategic guidance on how to better prepare for entry into the US marketplace and build credibility. Over the course of a 12-month engagement, Lebec successfully delivered against every single deliverable, including facilitating 65 key connections with potential strategic partners, connectors, advisory board members and funders. These relationships were transferred to Sentebale when Lebec completed its formal engagement in October 2024 on the understanding that Sentebale would nurture these relationships to support its fundraising and impact efforts.”
“Sentebale engaged Lebec and its team of six consultants to provide tools and strategic guidance on how to better prepare for entry into the US marketplace and build credibility.” Their chairwoman threw a tantrum on British television about the presence of Serena Williams (a Black American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and sports icon) at a Sentebale fundraiser. That seems like a terrible way for Sentebale to “build credibility” in American markets. It also seems like Chandauka was churning through Sentebale’s coffers with nothing to show for it – people were alienated by her and her bullsh-t, so “consultants” just gave her some corporate double-speak and no one actually wrote any checks to Sentebale. It absolutely looks like Prince William’s ally Iain Rawlinson saw an opening to exploit Chandauka and Sentebale one year ago and his “consultation” was mostly about helping Chandauka destroy Sentebale from within.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
“To spend nearly £500,000 on consultants at a charity that raises around £1.5 million a year seemed ludicrous.”
Here it is. She is trying to bury this info with her bullsh*t about H&M. It is always about money. She spent 500K and nothing to show for it? If she made 1.5 millions after all these consultations, it would be different. She failed and instead of apologizing and resigning, she badmouthed everyone. How can such person live with herself? This money was for children. She looks so Trumpy, who also stole money from a charity for children dealing with illness.
That’s one bad ratio for a charity. 1/3 to consultants? Usually non profits spend most of their budget on employee costs.
But Sophie likes to spend Sentebale money on “consultants”.
Wonder what the previous CEO’s budget forecast was prior to her taking over and if there was an expense line for consultants
The firing cause is she has nothing to show for it
Like if she said, yes I spent 500K, but got 1 million funding thanks to these consultations and commitment for future donations, it would be totally different. She is both incompetent and arrogant. The worst combo.
exactly! So Sentebale usually raises 1.5 million in a year. She spent a third of that on “consultants” but it wasn’t like the organization then raised 2.5 million in that year – which would have been a good ROI, right? She brought in another million so even with that 500k cost Sentebale is still ahead.
instead she lost a sponsor for their polo tournament.
I read that one of the consultant was her own brother, and she has the face to accuse Harry and Meghan when she gives the charity money for her own family
And the fact that the board initially signed off on it undercuts a lot of her accusations. Even if they weren’t too sure about the expenditure, they were letting her prove herself. It sounds like it wasn’t until they kept signing off on checks and was getting nothing in return, that they finally said hey this is enough we tried but you’re not bringing in any donors.
That’s exactly what they should be doing. It’s not bullying to be fired because you’re supposed to produce something and you don’t. Any job would put you on notice if they had given you a year in a sales role and you hadn’t landed any accounts.
Yes, but the board DID sign off on it. Smart? No, but hardly illegal.
Yes, but DID the board sign off on it? Aren’t there allegations that she spent all that amount without board approval, AND that she tampered with the minutes of board meetings to give the appearance that she had received the board’s approval? Also, why is at least one of the recipients of thousands of £s worth of Sentebale money “unnamed”?
@FHmom and Magdalena well I’m only going off the reporting in this particular article, but it sounds like they did approve for at least some of the expenditures. Whether all of them were approved, and that’s why there’s the allegation of change in minutes who knows. But, it sounds like once the board started to connect the dots about who she was paying, how much she was giving them, and that they weren’t seeing any outcome that they pump the brakes. For all we know they could have been asking sporadically for updates and she kept kicking the can down the road and giving them excuses until she couldn’t any longer. And that’s where accusations of bullying and refusing to step down, and potential lawsuits popped up.
She also demanded £300k salary for her volunteer job. That brings the total for admin and overhead to £725k, which is almost half of Sentebale’s annual revenue (before she lost the major donor). That’s insane.
I am hoping that whatever investigation the charity commission will be doing is going to happen soon. I am really interested in seeing what that says, because you just know this woman is going to have some nasty skeletons coming back to haunt her.
“A spokesman for Sentebale said: “Dr Chandauka deleted her Twitter account due to the proliferation of online bullying.”
Cry more
“The highest bill was for £185,000, which was paid to Lebec, a “woman-led strategy firm” founded by Alix Lebec, a former asset manager who has held leadership roles at the World Bank, the Clinton Global Initiative and Water.org. A source said that Lebec “convened a reception, panel discussion and intimate dinner”
Did they have caviar and champagne at that dinner?
“Over the course of a 12-month engagement, Lebec successfully delivered against every single deliverable, including facilitating 65 key connections with potential strategic partners, connectors, advisory board members and funders.”
Lebec gave Sentebale the names of 65 people – NOT DONORS
“He received £24,000 for his consultancy services and is said to be owed a further £66,000.”
Quite a tidy sum for Willie’s handler
What do you mean Rawlinson’s owed £66K? 
The donors want their money back! Sophie sure is rewarding her consultant mates with other people’s money
Actually Rawlinson in total would have received the second most, if you count this:
“Global Philanthrophic, a fundraising consultancy where Rawlinson had served as both the director and chair, also received £21,600 from Sentebale during this period.”
So first about £24k, £21k through Global Philanthropic, and 66k still owed.
Therefore approximately £111k total.
Sounds like you’re getting closer to the truth about how much Iain Rawlinson pulled out of Sentebale, and wth is his supposed £66K receivable for? Maybe he owes Willy Macbeth a finder fee for turning him on to Chanfakery’s cash cow?
As a board member of a small charity he’s supposed to be making it rain not scorch the earth.
(1) Iain Rawlinson personal receipts: £24,000 for his consultancy services and is said to be owed a further £66,000;
(2) Rawlinson Partners (Iain Rawlinson presumed partner) receipts = n/a;
(3) Global Philanthrophic, (Iain Rawlinson served as both the director and chair) receipts = £21,600.
It’s possible Lebec brought in big fish who were viable donors, but Sophie wasn’t able/competent to close any big deals. In addition to losing another big donor. Who knows.
In theory, a women-led consultancy team sounds great. I’ll be curious to see if Lebec enters the chat bc this has to be bad press for that team, the fact that their work produced nothing. Or am I not understanding?
@Me at home,
Yes, and, it is also a relatively easy feat to to wine and dine VIPs. The rich and their friends like these charity events. But the 65 people who attended your whatever aren’t “prospects.”
And @me, you also bring up a valid point about doing the real work once you get a viable prospect. It’s one thing to swan around with VIPs –but it is entirely something else to meet with your development staff to get people into the cultivation funnel and then to sit down and ask them for money with some solid case statements for what that money will do.
All this money, for what, exactly? How much time are they spending for their £22K?
She’s a coward to blame online bullying for her decision to withdraw from social media, right after a week of using the media to bully Harry and Meghan as a deflection from her own doings. Thank God for the Sussex Squad, whose diligent digging raised the first questions about her shady dealings and forced more mainstream outlets like the Times to start investigating.
Well put
.. she is just another in a long line that feels entitled to pile it on Meghan & Harry but cry about the blow back.
Also, Sussex Squad was very patient this time around. They waited for her to explain herself, taking into account that she is a black woman and the media loves to pit black people against H&M. After her interview next to Will’s pall, it was obvious to everyone what she was doing.
That really was the moment all of this became clear. The gall is infuriating.
So she just gave away Sentable’s money to her friends. Her attack on Harry and Meghan was to distract people from the real issues but I think she has also destroyed Sentable in the process.
That is the truly sad part.. it is the children who are going to suffer the most.
So annual revenue is £1.5m. She spent £425k on worthless consultants, or maybe some of the consultants were fine but she was incapable of reeling in the big donors they hooked her up with. Then she asked for a further £300k salary for her volunteer job. So she thought half of Sentebale’s annual revenue should go to admin and overhead? No wonder the board wanted to get rid of her, that’s insane.
Pretty much.
Wtf was with that £185,000 dinner from Lebec in exchange for 65 names?
Harry pulled REAL MONEY with his polo match and I bet his appearance was free. And that well-connected, rich polo crowd would have numbered more than 65. Their connections, immeasurable. Their net worth alone could fund Sentebale in perpetuity.
And she bitched about Meghan drinking champagne and Serena appearing unexpectedly? How much does Serena charge for an appearance fee normally? FFS
I’ve not seen a photo of Sophie with the kids affected by HIV which is Sentebale’s mission. So this person sure has expensive tastes and definitely does not lead by example. She thought chairing a charity was a gold mine for her and her consultant friends, feasting on the money meant for the kids. How delusional. I now get why she wanted to pivot to climate change – she can photo-op with scientists and the consultant crowd without having to do the dirty work.
Hold on, she can travel to the Maldives for “climate change” issues.
Maybe ..If she managed to do it. Earthshot could have advanced with a takeover / merge [‘esp with the connection to diana and william] / royal connection / sidelined this charity by taking / usurping contacts/ fundraising dollars/ connections. Stealing this better charities operational endeavors, or undermining it.
I said earlier i think this is about the paper harry is suing. Not necessarily the “palace” machine but the “media machine” I do not think the Royal family leads the charge, I think they are being protected by the media machinery and must go along or have, for example, theft, pedophilia etc. Outed more publicly and turned In For prison.
The last article was a hit to every royal , the way harry is told the Royals benefit from being protected ” in a bubble” from “their nefarious impulses ” was coded , imo, to say , take our deal privately and we will give you your charity back. We will stop showing you, what you care about, is vulnerable to our attacks and dismantling. Plus yes harry ask the charity lead to not undermine the founder and his family is a good email to send. It’s not bullying, she said no. And kept her job , so comfortable she asked for a ginormous raise.
Harry is not Nefarious so he doesnt need to do the Bidding. Bring the email. It can say what it says.
Then chandauka can resign, the founders reapply the tried and true strategy, the children get their resources returned.
@TUNI
It seems that they took the Earthshot awards away from William two years ago. Now he is just a figurehead who advertises on someone else’s work. Besides, it was like that from the beginning. William really wanted to have his Invictus, for the lights, media coverage, applause and crowds, and since he can only create a fight, he connected with Bloomberg’s foundation, who as a royalist agreed to it and the awards were added to the royal WK foundation.
After two disastrous events, they took it away from him. The law has a lot to do with “Kate’s Christmas carols”. For years, a charity foundation (I can’t remember the name) has organized them, and Kate comes to the final and says it’s hers.
And as for the palace and Senebale, of course he was involved from the beginning. HM now has a literal avalanche of successes and then Invictus in England, during which another, repeated propaganda about how Harry is hated in the UK will fall. William knows that this is not the case, and he had a foretaste of the fact that hate doesn’t work when H came to the jubilee mass
Besides, from the very beginning Chandauka was riding on the palace text. I also remind you that Chandauka appeared on Earthshot and received a medal from the palace a year earlier, and William’s advisor, who now sat in Senebale, appeared at an earlier event. Why? They had been planning the takeover for a long time. Apart from the main reason – destroying Harry and taking away everything he has and loves, Senebale, as a small organixation, could be less protected, it felt safe, because it had been working with the same people for years, creating something like a family. That’s why it was easier to strike there.
@Blogger, some part of “development” (aka fundraising) work is schmoozing with big names to get donations, which I saw in two NGOs I worked with (my job was research). Sophie was apparently incapable of reeling in these big fish, though. And the best development folks don’t need to pay for introductions; they get introductions through fundraising databases that actually exist complete with big donors’ philanthropic histories for better targeting, by attending events where these people can be found (like, you know, polo matches with Serena Williams in the crowd), and so on.
@Tuni. William’s fingerprints are definitely all over this. It’s possible the original idea was hers, because Sentebale said “no way” to her demand for a £300k salary and/or she thought working for the more senior brother would be profitable to her, personally. No doubt William saw this happen and is either watching with glee or jumped on board by sending Rawlinson to her. Too bad about those children with AIDS.
That’s why I don’t get Sophie’s strategy – give money to her consultant friend for an expensive dinner.. and what was the ROI? 65 names who may/may not have been in the existing Sentebale donor database.
Harry had already built the biggest fundraising event for Sentebale over the decades which was a polo match. With a ready made donor base thanks largely due to his connections and in return, Sophie shat on it, shat on his wife and shat on Serena. She sure is burning a lot of bridges with well connected people. And let’s face it, the Sussexes are highly connected.
What were her other ideas, art gallery event? She sounds like she was doing a fundraiser for a school.
Harry is royalty. He knew his crowd – elite, moneyed, expensive sport. That’s how he drew in his donors. Sophie wasn’t from that world but the way she thought she knew better than the patrons was gross arrogance, especially on the fundraising side.
I’d like to see Sophie start her own charity from scratch instead of destroying an existing one.
Sophie will step down with all her shady appointees. Harry and Prince Seeiso will have their charity back. Sentabale will rise from the ashes!
I truly hope William’s buddy Iain Rawlinson steps down because he realizes she’s toxic and this whole debacle is tarnishing his image.
That’s the only good I see coming out of this debacle: Rawlinson looks terrible.
You can say that again.
This is what happens when people who don’t know how things actually work think that they can do better.
I’m remembering that fantastic Demotivational poster. Consultants: If you can’t solve a problem, there’s a lot of money to be made in prolonging it.
Several years ago, I attended a series of seminars on fund raising and management of non-profits. We were told that the #1 problem for non-profits is an ineffective board. And the #1 reason anybody gets put on a board, including being made chair, is to raise money – either they can donate a pantload of money or they can get a pantload of money.
Sure, Sophie spent all that money on consultants, but the board approved it – who was paying attention to her spending? Now it looks like they were all participating in her plans, it looks like the consultant, Lebec, delivered a strategy that was never successfully implemented – who was in charge of seeing that through? If her performance was unsatisfactory, where is the paperwork to back that up? And I still don’t get the strategy for all the board to step down. Yes, there’d be legal fees if she sued, but it’s not likely Sophie has deep pockets, either. Everybody’s talking about Sentebale not having the funds, but nobody’s asking where she would get the funds.
As for the general idea/hope that the board has been laying low on advice of counsel, that they’ve allowed the publicity to be all about how Meghan is a bully and Sophie is jealous while planning some super secret strategy with attorneys – why be willing to take legal action now that they’ve all quit and not back when they were on the board? Are they willing to pay legal fees out of their own pockets? And if they’re willing to pay legal fees now out of their own pockets, why wouldn’t they have been willing to do it before they quit? What is even the point now that they’ve all walked away?
The board members are volunteers and they don’t want to deal with a “poisonous” chair.
They don’t get paid to deal with her BS so why stick around especially if her mission is to pivot to something unrelated and her spending doesn’t bring in the money?
Lebec delivered 65 names. Not money. How is that considered successful?
Sophie’s family is (were?) the second biggest donors after Harry, which maybe related to how she got her position, and is where her money for lawyers will come from.
Lebec delivered 65 names. Let’s leave aside the fact that most competent charities buy their access to one of the philanthropic donors databases, which is probably what Lebec used. A charity head’s biggest job is to get donations, while staff run the charitable programs. If Lebec gave her 65 names and she didn’t get a single new donor, at the same time that she lost a major donor for undisclosed reasons, what does that say about her skills as a charity head?
Yes, that’s what I said – the board, including the chair, are there to raise money – either by giving it themselves or going out to find it. And if they can’t raise money and they’re only wasting it, then they should be gone.
But if Sophie and/or her family are the second largest donors, then that puts a different spin on things. Getting rid of her would mean losing funding, so maybe the real issue isn’t just the legal costs of getting rid of her. Sadly, getting bullied by donors is not unusual. Still, they have the 65 names – didn’t any of the others want to pick up the slack?
Where did this information come from, that Ms. Chandauka’s family was the second largest donor to the charity? This is the first I’ve heard of it and it has not been in previous reports…?
@Magdalena. It came from a March 31 Daily Mail article, which says her family is the third highest donor. You can find a link to the article and more discussion of it some comments below.
I don’t know what UK rules are re liability and legal defense, or how Sentebale handles trustee liability. But I was a trustee in the US and you can absolutely be held personally liable for breaches of fiduciary responsibility, whether you’re still in position as a trustee or you’re no longer a trustee but something comes to light about what you did or a decision you made in the past. I have no insight as to what the trustees’ lawyers are telling them about keeping quiet.
In answer to your other question, Sentebale’s trustees did try to handle it before they quit. They asked her to resign and she threatened to bankrupt the charity by suing them. At least, that’s the reason they gave for all quitting.
No doubt, as she’s still Sentebale’s nominal chair, she’s spending its money on her London hate tour, lawyers and Rawlinson’s continued advice as we speak.
She can only spend the charity’s money if the board approves. Maybe the new board is letting her have carte blanche, but for what? Sentebale literally has no assets once they disburse program money. She threatened to bankrupt the charity if the old trustees got rid of her and the charity will still be bankrupted now that she’s still there with new trustees. So what was accomplished? Something else is going on behind all the smokescreens.
@eurydice, so are you thinking that some of the board/trustees shares some responsibility then? And it’s odd that they just folded and resigned? I have no idea what’s going on. Messy.
@Jais – yes, thank you for saying things clearly. Sometimes the fact that English isn’t my first language makes me wordy and unclear. It doesn’t seem possible that she could have taken on the entire board and defeated all of them, both in her hiring and firing – that’s making her a superhero and the board incredible weaklings. There has to have been some inside disagreements among the board members. We have a jigsaw puzzle here with a lot of pieces missing.
There were a lot of red flags, not just the consultants. The board clearly disagreed with and turned down her plan to pivot from children’s AIDS to climate change. They also turned down her request for a £300k salary for her volunteer position at a charity that had just £1.5m in revenues (before the big donor left). They probably signed off on hiring a consultant to host a dinner with potential donors because they thought it would pay off, but then she was unable to convince the potential donors and lost another donor at the same time.
All together, that’s a number of red flags. I’m guessing the board resigned because they knew the charity was doomed under her leadership, they couldn’t get rid of her without a huge lawsuit, and they didn’t want the huge lawsuit to be what everybody remembered. So they said to each other, let it die a quiet death by spending its remaining money on children instead of legal fees. Sophie didn’t appreciate the board’s strategy and here we are.
@Me at home – I can see this. The red flags were there even before, which is why she wasn’t on their recruitment list. So, basically, Sentebale was doomed from the start because she was going to sue them one way or the other and they were reluctant to face that. But, having left, the board has no guarantee that the remaining funds will go to the children.
Thanks some people are confusing some things, she didn’t get paid $300,000, she asked, the Board declined. She asked for the Board to move away from HIV/AIDS and they rightly said no. So on top of that, the consultants which didn’t have a good ROI and then losing a major donor had them saying, thanks for volunteering we want to pivot.
Sophie bears responsibility for the work she produced or didn’t produce. I think once the board caught on that the consultancy fees weren’t bearing out in donations she became an issue. It seems like there was an agency helping with the hiring process so I can’t speak to what happened there. From some of the trustees comments, I can believe there were some blind spots on the board. Sophie seemed great on surface and in the interview. On surface. It’s been spoken about at length above about people who interview well. I was a lead teacher for over a decade and sat on every department hire. And I get the someone interviews well thing. But at the same time there’s “deliverables” and “evidence” that can be looked at during that process and I can believe the hiring agency and board didn’t keep their eye on things as well as they could have and were wowed. And then they tried to course correct. Idk we will have to see how things shake out.
my guess is the board was signing off on the expenses because she was assuring them there would be a return on that money. and maybe 22k to this company or 80k to this company was okay, but then they looked at the overall spending, and noted the lack of fundraising, including the loss of the polo sponsor, and it started raising some red flags.
“It is understood that the board at the time signed off on the expenditure.” There’s the old britmedia heavy lifter “IT IS UNDERSTOOD…” along with the implied part ‘ALL OF IT!’ Even with whatever star journalistic talent is left at The Times, anyone reporting on Chanfakery’s mess will be flummoxed by whatever the current board spokesperson is saying and what the old board actually did say or endorse. It’s been pretty obvious to me for at least a day that Chanfakery is probably far out on the sociopath spectrum.
Anyone’s opinion on this who has not dealt with a far-out sociopath is not worth paying attention to. People think they can predict how they’d behave with an extreme sociopath, but until they actually do, they’re just kidding themselves. Sociopaths drive other people crazy, make them doubt themselves, and worse. Monty Roberts wrote convincingly about his brush with a sociopath in his 1997 book, “The Man Who Listens to Horses.” Worth a read for insight if you have none.
So it was all about money and how Chandauka has handle it. When William’s pal Iain was exposed getting a payout I think KP hit the panic button and called their press pals to throw Sophie under the bus. At this point Sophie needs to be sitting next to a criminal defense lawyer.
The CEO of a non profit or charity doesn’t govern the non profit. They handle the day to day operations of the nonprofit and management of the execution of the mission or focus, and that mission or focus is set by the board of directors. The board of directors is the governing body of an organization that’s set up like that. She came in with the intention of changing that focus and either didn’t completely sell the board on it or tried to quietly implement it without board approval. It is a small, country specific charity with a very specific mandate. It is not the Red Cross or something like that where the focus is both huge and needs to be regularly updated. She thought they wouldn’t push back on her because of the potential for bad publicity.
Agree. I think it was purposeful dismantling on others orders and she went along with it for financial gain and to be a head honcho. Perhaps her previous financial nefarious ways made her a good patsy but she didnt think she would be the face person to explain herself. Or to explain all the receipts she left out so obviously that counter her own narrative.
I think she thought she was protected by the media and their affiliates the royal machinery.
She had a lot of credibility to get hired but screwed the charity and the board and founders over.
Example of length inquiry can take eg In February 2022, the Charity Commission announced it would review the charity’s accounts. On 30 June 2022, the Charity Commission opened a statutory inquiry into the charity due to questions regarding its financial relationship with members of the Ingram-Moore family.
In July 2023, the charity said it had stopped taking donations pending the findings of
the Charity Commission’s inquiry. In October 2023, the Ingram-Moores’ barrister stated that the charity was “unlikely to exist” much longer.On 3 July 2024, the Charity Commission verified that the Ingram-Moores had been disqualified from being charity trustees and “from holding an office or employment with senior management functions in charities.”
Thank you for the timeline, that’s really helpful. I guess we’ll have to wait 2 years for this to blow over with the Charity Commission report. The board/trustees/patrons need to speak out now.
For a moment I was concerned that the charity in question was Sentebale. But a quick google shows it was Captain Tom and the Ingram-Moores were taking a £1.4 million book deal and an £18,000 awards ceremony appearance fee.
I agree that African charities should be more local and decolonized. And the baroness comparing Sophie to Mugawbe was awful. But I also read that Sophie wanted to move operations to LA, although perhaps that was fundraising (which still would bring in the White Savior issue). And she wanted to change Sentabale’s focus from African children to climate change, which seems more international.It’s hard to know what her real goals and concerns are.
@Me at home. Do we know it was the baroness who compared the situation to Zimbabwe’s past? I thought someone just said it was one of the trustees, not which one.
“Sophie’s family is (were?) the second biggest donors after Harry”
I have seen this several times now from reliable commenters, but I find it hard to believe.
Can anyone tell me the source?
I’m trying to find a source for this. But, this isn’t unexpected. In general, board members of non-profits are expected to make personal donations. In fact, they are often told an explicit amount before they commit to taking on the position.
@Eurydice. Thank you. I posted more about this below, before I saw this comment. The claim seems to be coming from the Daily Mail rather than a reliable source.
The Daily Fail, of all places, said her family was the third largest donor to Sentebale. See the 7th paragraph here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-14554025/prince-harry-charity-sentebale-financial-accounts.html
So after she paid these fees to consultants, what is left for the actual children she is supposed to be helping? I guess when she said that the charity was diversifying to include wealth/ she meant. F those kids , fill me and my friends pockets Instead. I just want to know if she is devoid of a heart , soul and compassion.
Why is Seeiso not mentioned as a founder in the article? That bugs me. And, IF her family is one of the big supporters of the charity and she wants to pay the money out to her picked consultants and to get a big salary for herself, it looks like money laundering.
The media is still going along with the narrative that she is the only non-white person in the charity. If they mention Seeiso, her complaints about white people hating on her and bullying her would look weird.
The Daily Mail wrote two days ago that Chanduaka’s family is the *third* largest donor to Sentebale. They do not say what time period they are speaking of. They have no financial documents for Sentebale after 2023. The article:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-14554025/prince-harry-charity-sentebale-financial-accounts.html
Perhaps she leaned on some wealthy members of her family to donate when she was trying to be considered for Chair? Perhaps Iain gave money to her family to donate to help that campaign? (I’d think her first priority would be to have her family pay the delinquent taxes on the failing black business awards charity which she founded.) Or maybe the DM just took Sophie’s or Iain’s word for it?
I don’t accept the DM as a source. I’d like to hear this from a reliable source to believe it.
The DM chart does show the loss of donations in 2020 when Harry left the UK, the event Sophie uses to say Harry is toxic, but the DM & Sophie do not mention that it probably was the result of the start of the 2020 pandemic. I suspect many charities had reduced income due to the lost jobs & income & other uncertainties of the pandemic crash. Of course, if the DM pointed that out, then they would just blame Harry for Covid itself. After all, Sophie says he’s toxic.
Please post here if you’ve seen a reliable source for Sophie’s family being big donors. Thanks.
I’ve gone through Sentable’s latest annual report and there’s no specific mention of Sophie or her family having made donations. The board donated 120,000 pounds in total and there’s a “thank you” list of individuals, foundations and agencies that have donated in various ways – no number, but a good sized list and I can’t imagine Sophie would be the 3rd highest there. Of course, it’s just for 2023. From Sophie’s bio, there’s no indication of major wealth in her family – she must have made money in her prior jobs and her brother is a research doctor, so maybe the two have some kind of charity together?
You can access the reports through the Charitable Commission website.
Thanks, Eurydice. Maybe Sophie & DM are talking about 2024, and, conveniently, we won’t see that report till 3Q2025. Or maybe they are talking *2025*, when Harry hasn’t had a fundraiser, and the Board didn’t donate before they resigned because they didn’t trust her with their money, so there’s not much competition for being *third highest*. That sounds about right!
Sophie’s parents were, maybe still are, teachers. In a New Statesman interview she said they had side businesses to pay for their children’s private school educations. Her mother wrote children’s books & father built playground equipment or something. So if they have wealth to donate, it may be because they are no longer paying tuition. Perhaps there are some wealthy aunts or uncles. Sophie would have donated as a board member, and she has had lucrative jobs, as has her brother. But they started Nandi Life Services in 2023, and that should have required some investment on their part. Her asking for several hundred thousand in salary, if indeed that happened, doesn’t sound like she has a lot to donate. But who knows.
I’ll just hope that if this curious fact is wrong, someone will correct it.
And again that photo where Chandauka literally wants to get under Harry’s skin. She’s not standing close but next to him like the rest, but she’s almost lying on him pressed into his body.
This is not normal behavior.
She must have a guaranteed job at KP or a big payout from KP for her to ruin her reputation so publicly.
This is all so perplexing.
Gosh, so many new tidbits swirling in the pot. Her misuse of the Dr. prefix, wealthy family, reliance on high-priced, scammyish marketeers (all flashing red lights from my experience), doomed her to a short “international businesswoman” career without the uncalled for trashing of Harry and Meghan.
Rawlinson looks the part of a palace lickspittel but it still astonishes that a high burn C3POed state still, immaturishly exists when the personality impoverished royal family so screamingly need H&M&A&L light and energy.
So basically she promised something she couldn’t deliver on and spent a ton of money in that could have been better used. Instead of correcting her major mistake or taking the L and stepping down when they asked, she became intransigent, hence everyone, including the founders, walking away. I suspected they offered her a way out to preserve her dignity and reputation but she thought she could scale up a very focused charity to a business model and continue to trade on Harry’s name, using the press as leverage. Who’s gonna want to work with her now? A mess.
Can someone explain to me how can she just takeover a charity. Harry and Prince Seesio didn’t trademark the name Sentebale? Who actually owns the charity? They can’t cut off the funds to prevent her from getting control of the money? This is the weirdest thing.
The misuse of an honorary doctorate should have been a strong red flag when she “volunteered” and was hired for that position. Also, listing the companies and organizations you have worked for is not necessarily adequate for putting someone in a position where they can spend money that is not their own. I wonder what checking of references was done, and since references can be misleading, if they adequately checked with people who she worked with in the past to get the real story. A person can look really good on paper, but not in reality, and that use of Dr. before her name should have rung a lot of warning bells.
Based on her age and the number of previous employers she had, I am guessing that she might have done some of these things in the past. Would be interesting to hear from her past coworkers, for example.
I hope that when the two founders start a new charity, which I assume they will do, that they make sure the bylaws or the organization and the legal conditions under which they hire employees provide for something a lot stronger than just having to “ask” someone to resign. The board and/or the founders should have had the power to fire her, at their pleasure with no lawsuits against them possible from the fired person. And this should pertain to “volunteers” as well.
Someone (Wesley) on a previous article explained the resignation issue very well. I am gonna just copy paste it:
“The Board do have the power to fire her, that’s why she sought an injunction to prevent them from doing that. She hoped that there’d be a highly public Court Case where she could make all kinds of noise. The Board instead resigned, saying that they couldn’t waste the Charity’s money on fighting her in Court when it’s needed to fulfil the Charity’s purpose.”
OK, I have been researching her education. Wikipedia has two universities listed for her: University of Birmingham and Lake Superior State University. The latter is in the small Michigan city in the Upper Peninsula. Apparently, she was a Rotary International Exchange student in that town.
Wikipedia’s discussion of her education uses words such as “attended” or “studied at”, which are vague terms that do not say anything about graduation or any degrees that she earned at either place. Wikipedia says of her further education, “Chandauka studied at The College of Law in England and the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice, and qualified in September 2005 as a corporate lawyer with Baker & McKenzie in London.” It sounds as if she received scholarships for most of her education. Another newspaper describes her as coming from a humble family of teachers who struggled to put her through school.
How do you qualify in the UK as a corporate lawyer? And are their different levels that are defined by the term “corporate lawyer”? Did she have to pass any bar exams? Get a specific degree? In other words, do we know if she was fully qualified to be a practicing lawyer?
It also says she was awarded “Young Solicitor of the Year” in 2007 and “Young Assistant Solicitor of the Year” in 2008. Her honorary doctoral degree was awarded in 2023 by the University of Coventry, and such awards are given to non-graduates who are speaking at a graduation ceremony or other event, and it is not considered proper to use them as if they are real academic degrees.
I cannot find anything on her “wealthy” parents or donations they may have made to any charities. Nor, can i find anything on her husband or any children.
@JudyB. Thanks for your research! I aologize that I cannot remember exactly where I read exactly what, but here are things I remember.
Yes, Sophie was an exchange student in high school in Canada, sponsored by the Rotary Club, and then went to college across the border in Michigan. Wikipedia was revised in recent days to show the Michigan state university and the University of Birmingham in England. She received degrees from both universities. Birmingham I think was Business Admin.
Then she trained as a lawyer by getting two degrees or two levels of certifications in law, maybe both in schools in Oxford but neither from THE Oxford. Baker McKenzie would not have hired her unless she really was a lawyer and did well in school. Likewise she would not have received the Solicitor awards if she were not fully qualified and a decent lawyer. (She isn’t a Barrister, however, which is required to argue in court I think.)
The honorary degree in business was later, the same year she returned to the Sentebale board. Using “Dr. Chandauka” may not be correct protocol outside of Coventry Univ, but she probably isn’t the only honoree who does that kind of thing. And she was considered by Coventry to deserve the award.
It’s not as if she hasn’t achieved a lot in her life, but she’s been a disaster for Sentebale. I don’t rule out that it was intentional, with Rawlinson advising her.
I still wonder about her family being called the third highest donors. Maybe for 2025, since she has chased away the trustees and other donors.