Sentebale has scrapped polo matches from its fundraising activities after Prince Harry walked away from the charity in a row over racism and bullying.
The African youth organisation, which was set up by the Duke of Sussex in 2006, has begun to distance itself from the royal.
Prince Harry resigned as patron of Sentebale in March after the new chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka, made a series of incendiary allegations about his behaviour.
Polo events that Prince Harry personally took part in have constituted a major source of the charity’s income. The Sentebale ISPS Handa Polo Cup raised 18 per cent of funds last year.
But a report into the charity’s accounts which was published on Friday revealed that the sport has now been ditched as its flagship fundraiser.
It is understood that the move is part of a wider effort to rebrand Sentebale as it approaches its 20th anniversary next year.
The charity is hoping to cut £1million annually and attract more investment from organisations, rather than through high-profile individuals and celebrities.
Sentebale previously received a £1.2million donation from the Duke of Sussex following the publication of his memoir Spare, which it said had ‘masked’ structural weaknesses in the charity’s financial model.
Prince Harry resigned as patron of Sentebale in March after the new chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka, made a series of allegations about his behaviour. They are pictured together
In an introduction to the report, Dr Chandauka (pictured with Prince Harry last year) described her tenure as chair since July 2023 as a ‘grueling and humbling period’
The report noted that the changes were ‘necessary in order to reduce dependence on events-based fundraising, particularly polo, which was heavily reliant on participation of one former patron who had expressed a desire for the charity to reduce its reliance on him for several years’.
Friday’s report revealed that Sentebale’s total income last year was £3.35million, down from £3.41million in 2023. It has already secured 70 per cent of its funding goals for next year.
In an introduction to the report, Dr Chandauka described her tenure as chair since July 2023 as a ‘grueling and humbling period’.
She said, however, she has been left with ‘profound gratitude, pride and conviction in the future of Sentebale’.
Commenting on the accounts, Dr Chandauka said: ‘This 16-month period marks Sentebale’s bold transformation: building stronger programmes, governance, and financial resilience.
‘We tackled structural weaknesses head-on: slashing our cost base by £1m through workforce restructuring and contract renegotiations, while protecting 92 per cent of our vital Africa-based staff who power our high-performing regional team.
Dr Chandauka is pictured with the Sussexes at the Royal Salute Polo Challenge last April
Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho quit as patrons of the charity they had founded in solidarity with trustees who said they could not carry on under Dr Chandauka
‘We retained 100 per cent of our institutional funders and secured over 70 per cent of 2026 funding goals.’
‘As we reach our 20th anniversary next year, Sentebale is poised to soar, empowering even more children and young people across southern Africa to claim their futures,’ she added.
Sentebale was set up to help orphans with Aids in the impoverished kingdom of Lesotho in memory of Prince Harry’s late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.
The name means ‘forget me not’ in the country’s official language.
Prince Harry, however, walked away from the charity following a damning report into an explosive race row sparked by Dr Chandauka.
The UK Charity Commission had launched a probe into the acrimonious boardroom battle – but criticised both sides in its findings.
The probe said it could find ‘no evidence’ of ‘widespread or systemic bullying or harassment, including misogyny or misogynoir’ at Sentebale following the allegations made by Dr Chandauka.
But it also criticised the trustees, who included Harry, who resigned en masse in March after the row was made public.
The Charity Commission criticised both sides for the ‘damaging internal dispute’. Pictured: Dr Chandauka with Prince Harry last October
Scores of donors – loyal to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – allegedly stopped donating to the charity, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds in essential funding.
The watchdog acknowledged the ‘strong perception of ill treatment’ felt by all parties, including Dr Chandauka, and the impact this may have had on them.
It ruled that failures leading up to, and following, the dispute had led to ‘mismanagement in the administration of the charity’.
But, despite the Commission urging both sides in the dispute to take a step back from playing out their problems ‘in the public eye’, both sides remained entrenched.
In a further escalation of the war of words, a spokesman for the prince said it was ‘unsurprising’ that the report makes no findings of wrongdoing in relation to himself, or evidence of bullying or racism.
The statement also hit out at the Charity Commission itself whose report he claimed fell ‘troublingly short in many regards’.
In her statement, Dr Chandauka emphasised that it was she who first privately raised concerns about the charity’s governance with the Commission in February this year.
It was only after she did this, she stressed, that ‘those who resigned’ in March launched an ‘unexpected and adverse media campaign’ that had gone on to cause ‘incalculable damage’ to the charity’s work.
