A HIV charity founded by Prince Harry has made seven staff members redundant as part of a global restructure while it tackles funding challenges.
According to reports in the Times, Sentebale has laid off four of its five-strong London staff team in a redundancy round that was launched after Prince Harry and co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho both stepped down as patrons in March.
Employees dismissed include the charity’s global head of finance and compliance, with other redundancies in its African teams, according to the reports.
According to a redundancy letter from April seen by the Times, Sentebale told staff it “does not have” donor funding and the charity is in “retrenchment”.
Fundraising drive
Sentebale confirmed that since April, there has been a total of seven departures across the charity’s three locations in London, Lesotho and Botswana as part of its restructuring.
But the charity said funders responsible for two-thirds of its income remain steadfast, and said difficulties raising money have been caused by the “negative media campaign”.
As a result, it said efforts are being geared towards “significant fundraising efforts to replace these funds and replenish reserves".
According to the charity, it has “gained an equal – if not greater – number of new individual donors who are aligned with the work itself”.
It said the move to reduce its workforce, first discussed in early 2024, was “deliberate and responsible” due to “uncertainty relating to international donor funding”.
The charity added that redundancies in London were part of its strategy to “transition senior executive roles to southern Africa”.
The spokesperson for Sentebale added that institutional funders account for more than 65% of Sentebale’s overall funding and have “continued to demonstrate their full confidence in and commitment to the organisation”.
Recent investigation
The Charity Commission opened a regulatory compliance case into Sentebale in April this year over governance concerns after Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso left following an internal dispute between the charity’s trustees and Chandauka.
The commission issued Sentebale with a regulatory action plan to address “governance weaknesses” after the “damaging” internal dispute emerged publicly.
It found the then trustees’ failure to resolve disputes internally severely impacted the charity’s reputation and “risked undermining public trust in charities more generally”.
But the investigation found there was no evidence of any “widespread or systemic bullying or harassment, including misogyny or misogynoir at the charity” despite claims to the contrary by Chandauka.
The charity, which was founded in 2006 and supports people in Africa living with HIV and Aids, had 107 employees in the year to August 2023, according to documents filed with the commission.
