Prince Harry donates $1.5 million to children’s charity

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By Phil Noble

NOTTINGHAM, England (Reuters) – Prince Harry said on Tuesday he was personally donating 1.1 million pounds ($1.49 million) to the BBC Children in Need charity, one of the largest individual sums publicly given by a member of the British royal family.

The announcement came during a visit by the Duke of Sussex to Nottingham, a city in central England, his first visit to Britain in five months and one of his most high-profile trips since stepping down from royal duties in 2020.

The money will help young people in communities blighted by violence and knife crime, especially in Nottingham, said Children in Need, which has raised more than 1 billion pounds since 1980 to support charities and projects across Britain.

“Nottingham has my respect, it always has, my commitment, and a permanent place in my heart,” Harry, 40, said of the city that he and his wife Meghan visited on their first official engagement eight years ago.

“Violence impacting young people, particularly knife crime, continues to devastate lives, cut futures short, and leave families in grief. I’ve been committed to this work for over a decade, and sadly, the urgency today is even greater than when I first began. We cannot, and must not, and will not look away.”

Harry said he understood his contribution alone would not be enough to make a difference, and it would need the government, police, schools and businesses to all work together to make a difference.

While the royals’ charitable organisations often donate millions and individuals often privately give to causes, these are not usually publicly disclosed.

King Charles was thanked by organisers for an unspecified donation he gave to an appeal to help survivors of an earthquake which struck Turkey and Syria in 2023, a cause Harry’s brother Prince William and his wife Kate also supported.

William has also recently donated unspecified sums to mental health organisations, charities helping in Ukraine and after a hurricane in the Caribbean, as well as to a food bank in London after it suffered a burglary. 

After arriving from his home in California on Monday, Harry laid flowers at the grave of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth on the third anniversary of her death, before attending an awards ceremony for ill children

Much of the media focus has been on whether Harry, who now lives in California with his wife Meghan and their two children, will meet his father King Charles, whom he has not seen for 20 months.

($1 = 0.7375 pounds)

(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Bernadette Baum and Sharon Singleton)