Prince Harry announced on March 25 that he had stepped down as a patron of Sentebale, the charity he co-founded in memory of his mother, after a monthslong dispute between the charity’s chair and the board of trustees broke into the open.
Harry and his fellow co-founder, Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, said they had quit in solidarity with five board members who had resigned over a dispute with the chair, Sophie Chandauka.
Both Ms. Chandauka and the group of former trustees have made allegations of wrongdoing against each other, and both parties said they had submitted claims and evidence of their arguments to Britain’s Charity Commission.
Here’s what we know.
Why did Prince Harry resign from the charity?
Harry founded the charity with Prince Seeiso in 2006. In recent months, the organization’s leadership has been at loggerheads. The five trustees who resigned — Timothy Boucher, Mark Dyer, Audrey Kgosidintsi, Kelello Lerotholi and Damian West — said in a joint statement that they had called on the board’s chair, Ms. Chandauka, to resign from her position, after losing “trust and confidence” in her.
They said that Ms. Chandauka, who was appointed in 2023, responded by filing a lawsuit in Britain “to block us from voting her out,” and that they were resigning to avoid burdening the charity with the cost of the suit.
“We could not in good conscience allow Sentebale to undertake that legal and financial burden and have been left with no other option but to vacate our positions,” the former trustees said in their statement. “This was not a choice willingly made, but rather something we felt forced into in order to look after the charity.”
Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso said in their statement that the former trustees had “acted in the best interest of the charity in asking the chair to step down.” They added: “What’s transpired is unthinkable. We are in shock that we have to do this, but we have a continued responsibility to Sentebale’s beneficiaries, so we will be sharing all of our concerns with the Charity Commission as to how this came about.”
What are Ms. Chandauka’s accusations against the former trustees and Prince Harry?
Ms. Chandauka said in a statement about the former trustees that she had acted to expose what she described as “issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir and the coverup that ensued.” (Misogynoir is a term referring to pointed sexism toward Black women.) In addition to filing a case in an English court, she said, she had reported the trustees to Britain’s Charity Commission.
After the five trustees stepped down, Ms. Chandauka appointed four new trustees
In interviews with the British news media, Ms. Chandauka has since accused the prince of engaging in harassment and bullying to try to force her out of her post. A spokesman for Harry declined to comment on her latest claims.
Despite her allegations, Ms. Chandauka said her relationship with Harry had been “fantastic, actually.” But she said, “There are some individuals on the board who thought they could get away with mistreating a woman.”
What is Sentebale?
Harry established Sentebale with Prince Seeiso, the younger brother of King Letsie III of Lesotho, in 2006. Founded in honor of Harry’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, and Seeiso’s mother, the charity raised funds for communities affected by the H.I.V. pandemic in Lesotho, a small landlocked kingdom that is one of the world’s poorest countries. In 2019, it expanded its work into nearby Botswana, and to addressing substance abuse, gender-based violence and other social ills among young people.
What happens next?
Both sides have filed claims of wrongdoing with Britain’s Charity Commission, which regulates charities in England and Wales. Although Sentebale operates in southern Africa, it is registered in Britain.
A spokeswoman for the Charity Commission said that the regulator was “assessing the issues to determine the appropriate regulatory steps.”
