The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have obviously closed down their “Sussex Royal Foundation,” which they formed last year with the idea that they could have a stand-alone charity/foundation after separating from The Royal Foundation, which Harry started with William years ago. I still believe – and I’m expecting Finding Freedom to verify this – that Prince William was the one who threw a fit about both the Sussex Royal Foundation and the Sussex Royal Instagram. Both the IG and the foundation were more dynamic and interesting than anything the Cambridges did, so instead of merely stepping up and doing better, William used his position in the Sussexit negotiations to demand that Harry and Meghan shut down their Instagram and their foundation. I still expect Harry and Meghan to launch a new IG, and clearly, they will launch a new charity or foundation too, they just won’t use “royal” in the name of either.
So with the foundation suspended/closed, there are still funds in the mix. The Duchess of Sussex decided to use the remaining money in a special way: donating it to a cause which involves refugees and cooking.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have dissolved their Sussex Royal foundation, and they’re using the remaining funds to support causes close to their hearts. On Friday, the charity Migrateful announced on Twitter that they received a $10,000 donation on behalf of the Duchess of Sussex. “We are immensely grateful for this donation which will go towards supporting the Migrateful mission,” the organization wrote.
The charity uses one of Meghan’s favorite activities — cooking — to help refugees, asylum seekers and migrants struggling to integrate and gain employment. Migrateful empowers them by having them run cooking classes, helping to build confidence and social connections while promoting cultural exchange with the community.
“Migrateful looks to support migrants in a number of ways relating to wellbeing, employability and integration,” according to their website. “We provide our chefs with wider social networks, improved English language and communication skills, increased confidence, a source of income, and opportunities to celebrate and share their culture.”
The Finding Freedom excerpts are good gossip, but whenever we hear anything like this, I’m reminded of just how bittersweet the Sussexit was. Meghan cares so much about this kind of thing, and she loves how food and cooking intersects with issues like poverty, feminism, immigration, and on and on. She could have done so much in those areas as a member of the royal family. But they smeared her and abused her and pushed her out of the family.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid, Avalon Red.
I think she can do more outside that family! the RF is not there to work; people in the uk expect them to wear tiaras, dresses, smile and shut up! for women like Meghan and I would say Diana as well, they can operate better outside of the family
Agreed.
Absolutely! But the BRF was so stupid (and racist) to treat her as they did, because she and Harry would have been so good for them – one good deed after another, she would have brought so much positivity both in the press and public opinion.
ITA on all points.
I still can’t believe that family and media fumbled the bag for boring, dull, mediocre Kate and Will and are protecting Andrew. I can see why they’re still pressed for the Sussexes. What they have left is boring and a hard sell and even they know that. They can’t talk about the affair or Andrew in-depth because of legal reasons and they’ve burned the Sussex bridge and will never have access to them again. The monarchy is weaker and dull and the media have lost so much money behind backing the wrong horses. Talk about Karma.
They will continue to smear her. People made clear this is about remaining funds from closing operations. Cambridge minions will complain about donation, saying 10.000 from her own pocket is crumbs next to William one million donation from the money of others.
and the RF is worth BILLIONS!
Who did William donate “one million” too?
a week ago there was a story about William using the foundations to pass on one million donators gave it to him.
@Priscilla – I thought that was government grant money???
It was stated some rich people approached Bill begging him to take their money and a couple of months after they announced it as a donation he was passing over to other charities from the foundation…
Since my policy is not to believe anything KP, you might be right.
Kate and William donated £5.000 to victims of floods in Wales several years ago – after William was publicly called out for not helping but rather partying elsewhere.
But… this wasn’t from her own pocket. It states it was funds from the dissolved charitable foundation. I’m not complaining about it, just thought that should be clear.
It is from their own pockets because it was revenue from their foundation. Like the money they donated from the roaylties they received from their wedding. Or the money she donated from the narration she did for Disney. It is money earned/ generated by them.
The comparison I was making was in relation to the money William received from unnamed donors under the umbrella of his Foundation. It was not money he generated, nor made. He did not even ask for the money- the report was that he was approached- .
I am saying that any gesture made by Meghan will be pointed out by the haters as not enough, and predicting they will compare it to William, forgetting William only donates money it is not his.
and I think it is wise of Harry and Meghan not to touch the inheritance money. It is very sensible seeing they are out of Rf and need to think about buying a house, paying security, establishing themselves in the coming years.
But i do not know how foundations work. I assume it is not money from government, but that came in from one of their projects.
I’m a bit confused about the money coming from the Royal Foundation, though. Do they still have comingled funds? Are some of the Sussexes’ projects still bringing money in for the Foundation?
It is probably funds from the proceeds from the cook book. That money was set up so that it couldn’t be absorbed to fund other, non-related projects as far as I recall.
Not sure Wills made them stop using SR& wind up their foundation. That was consequence of not being able to use ‘royal’ anymore and I think the courtiers were behind that decision. They were the ones who were quoted as saying they would be punished.
I love finding out about new orgs through Meghan. She really did her research on the U.K. charity& social enterprise scene& Migrateful sounds like a great one.
Unfortunately immigration is a contentious topic in Britain. So supporting things like this and her cookbook project, which was centred on predominantly black or brown Grenfell community members cooking in a kitchen based in a mosque made it easy for the xenophobic, Islamaphobic mainstream press to attack Meghan. She joined the royal family at a particularly toxic time culturally in Britain so if she wants to lend support to issues like this, is better outside of the BRF. Shame.
They likely could have changed tp a ‘doing business as’ type of name but kept the previous Foundation. And simply changed the name on their IG without losing any followers, which is a simple change you can do yourself behind the scenes. I don’t doubt W&K resented the success of Harry and Meghan’s ventures, and thought that forcing Harry and Meghan to start over would deter them. They thought wrong.
The only reason two such mediocre people as Will and Kate have any public visibility at all is because of their royal connection. That’s no longer as true for Harry, and now Meghan. Plus, no one will forget who Harry is, so whether he uses HRH or “royal” is irrelevant.
And because Harry is still part of the RF, even if he’s no longer a working member, projects done via a foundation named Sussex Royal could have reflected positively on the image of the RF as a whole. Instead, out of pettiness and competitive jealousy, the family chose to make it clear they wanted to crush any ambitions Harry and Meghan had. They won’t succeed, but reasonable people won’t forget what they tried to do.
I love hearing about charities like these. Specially as an immigrant myself, knowing how hard it is to learn the language, assimilate into the new culture, and thrive in it. This type of mentorship and community for these people who are refugees is incredibly valuable. Hope they get more donations now with this spotlight on them.
One of the things I’ve liked about the Sussexes’ charitable endeavors is that they are giving attention to less-known groups that ordinarily don’t get it.
Wonderful. Hopefully the organization gets more donations to support their work.
I think the excerpts coming out over this past year prove that Meghan will be more effective doing the work she loves outside of the royal family fold. All of the comments about her riling the palace staff by, basically, moving too quickly for them – it would be exhausting.
In a way, she’ll be able to have the best of both worlds, because it’s not like people will forget that Harry and Meghan were associated with the royal family, no matter what their foundation is called, but they can rightly say that they are not part of this stuffy, racist, and inherently problematic institution.
Typical of William (I’m guessing) to focus on titles and not the work itself, which is more of a threat to his relevance.
I agree so much with everything you are saying. She cares deeply and in addition to marrying a man she loves and having a family with him, he marriage has given her the opportunity to do so much more that will benefit others. We need so much more of this in the world today.
Maybe Kate can add a meaningless Zoom call to the handful she’s managed since March or take a pap stroll at another plant nursery or something. Get your money’s worth, Britain!
This sounds like a awesome organization. Yeah, it would be great to have their own page up and running, but this works too and get the message out .
Good for Meghan. I really respect her desire to make an impact rather than just coast along. I also saw on Twitter that the Sussex Squad (I think that is their name?) have raised a lot of money to donate to charities in honor of Meghan and Harry’s birthdays. It is pretty cool that they inspires their fans to do their own independent fundraising.
Well done.