Prince William and Kate
Middleton had plenty to celebrate this week after new figures highlighted
the financial success of their ever-growing charity.
Despite a tumultuous year
marred by COVID-19, the royal couple’s charity, The Royal Foundation,
enjoyed unprecedented success.
Income for their joint venture
reported a leap from £6.7million in 2019 to £20.4million in
2021, allowing it to almost double its charitable spending to £16.4million.
Formed on 29 September 2009,
The Royal Foundation used its increased charitable expenditure to bolster its
key programmes. In terms of conservation, Prince William and Kate injected
a sizeable amount of their charity’s income into both The Earthshot Prize and United
for Wildlife.
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Kate presented an award at last year’s Earthshot prize awards
In addition to this, the royal
duo pumped extra cash into their Centre for Early Childhood, Emergency
Responders and various mental health-related projects.
The prestigious Earthshot
Prize accounted for the highest amount of charitable expenditure (£12.1million)
which included the cost of five £1million prizes awarded to the winners.
These were awarded as grants to the winners in 2022 and will be paid out over a
period of up to three years.
Prince William and Kate’s
charity success comes after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex cut ties with the
royal family in favour of greater privacy.
Back in January 2020, Prince
Harry and Meghan announced their decision to “step
back” as senior members of the royal family. The duo now split their time
between their $14million Montecito home and their residence in the UK.
Their departure from the royal
family coincided with a notable change to The Royal Foundation. Despite the
charity’s decision to grant half of the net future proceeds received by
the Diana Fund (absorbed by The Royal Foundation) to the Sussex
Royal Foundation, Prince Harry and Meghan opted to dissolve their Sussex
charity in 2020 in favour of their own Archewell foundation.
