Why did Archewell rebrand after a 2.5m deficit?

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:01]In 2024, Archwell Foundation posted a $2.5 million deficit. They then rebranded to Archwell Philanthropies, where according to People magazine, it will still operate within a nonprofit structure, but now through a fiscal sponsorship model. It goes on to say that under the new approach, an established 501c3 will oversee the administrative side, including compliance, finances, and global grant making.

[00:00:34]>> What the hell does that mean?

[00:00:36]>> That means whatever the hell you want it to mean.

[00:00:39]>> Yeah, pretty much. Uh, hi, my name is Rachel. I'm an airline pilot by day. When I'm on the ground, I like to study business and uh and I'm studying charities specifically, I guess, the business behind charities.

[00:00:52]Today, we are covering Archwell. This is one of my most requested videos. So, go grab a snack, sit back, relax. We're going to go through the numbers. We'll comb them uh through together. So, a few things before we start. Um first of all, what is a 501c3? Well, it is a charity.

[00:01:11]It's a taxexempt uh basically status that you get from the IRS. So if someone if I start the Rachel Foundation and someone comes and gives me a check for a million dollars, I don't have to pay any tax on it at all whatsoever. And then the person who gave me that check uh can use that as a write off against their own taxes themselves, against, you know, their income.

[00:01:37]>> You don't even know what a write off is.

[00:01:41]Do you?

[00:01:42]>> No, I don't.

[00:01:44]>> But they do, and they're the ones writing it off.

[00:01:50]Last Seinfeld reference, I promise. But anyway, uh 501c3s have rules and you have to file paperwork every year. Now, famously in 2024, uh, Archwell was actually deemed delinquent to for just a few days, uh, when their check got lost in the mail, you have to file this paperwork annually. And it just makes sense, right? If the IRS is saying, "Hey, you're tax exempt. I think it's only fair for these forms to be filled out and say, hey, we gave money to these people. This is how much it costs to run the charity, etc." Right? Now, I was curious because they went they became philanthropies and I I looked it up.

[00:02:34]There's actually there's no legal uh like umbrella for philanthropies.

[00:02:38]There's nothing. They don't have to file anything. It's just a name. It's like if I could start Monteceto Minimalist Philanthropies. Um yeah, there's no like actual oversight for the name Philanthropies, which I found to be interesting. The other weird thing, and I keep focusing on this, is the an established 501c3 will oversee the administrative side, which I don't know if that's Archwell Foundation that maybe they're going to keep open and just like put a little bit of money in and out. Like, I'm not entirely sure if that's how they're doing it or are they trying to shop for kind of like a big sponsor? Like if Oprah were to have a foundation, are they going to like try to say, "Oh, Archwell is now under the Oprah Foundation." I don't know. But I mean, their language is vague here, which is, you know, it's nothing really new at this point.

[00:03:34]Anyway, so we can get into the numbers now. Um, now the other thing, one more thing before we get started. Total revenue. You're going to see this column. Uh, that is the donations. And I know you're going to ask, I don't know where the donations came from. Now, there is speculation. It's like, did Oprah give him $10 million? Blah blah blah. I don't know. I really don't know because remember, we are a fact channel.

[00:03:57]So, I'm not going to try to speculate where the money came from, but at least you know, you guys can kind of see the full picture. We're going to go through year by year, and then at the very end, I'm just going to stack them all together so you guys can sort of see the breakdown for yourselves. And remember the numbers 7525ish, uh, because those switch by the end of this. So, um, 2021, starting with this one, total revenue, $13 million. They had expenses of just under4 million.

[00:04:26]Grants paid, so that's money that they gave out to other institutions, was $3 million, $163,000 in payroll, and other expenses at $727,666.

[00:04:43]Now, you're probably going to ask about expenses. also not really broken down too much. And so I I went and I sort of did my own research, but it it can include legal, accounting, program consultants, office expenses, event cost, filing fees, travel, blah blah, etc., right? All that stuff. So is it possible? I do know that there is a way where you can like if you have a home office I know that that's sort of uh right offable if you want to say that but I I don't know if that's just that's other expenses. Um so if you look here they have the employee rated expenses line they actually break that down for us so we can see what payroll looks like but in general grants as the percentage of expenses was 77%.

[00:05:32]So 77% went out. That's that is number I was telling you about. Uh payroll was 4.1, other expenses were 18.3%.

[00:05:41]And um the non-grant spend uh for expenses was 22.3%.

[00:05:47]So I mean it's it's we'll say it's healthy, right? Because again that's 77%. That's what we're looking right.

[00:05:54]That's like the oo that's a nice chunk of change that's going out to actually help people. So that's 2021. That's their first year. Now, year two is a little different. Um, their revenue, so they got in donations, they got $2 million. Their expenses were two and a little over $2.5 million. Okay, they paid $1.2 million in grants. So, remember, year one, they paid a little over three. Now, this is 1.25. So, they they they havedved it and then and then some. Um, payroll jumps up a ton here.

[00:06:29]640,000.

[00:06:30]Um other expenses 786 roughly about the same right as as the year before and then the grants as a percentage of expenses is 46%.

[00:06:43]Which is good. Payroll is 23%. Um remember when I was doing Invictus Australia I saw that like 66% went to payroll. So 23 is still looking pretty good. Um other expenses at 29% and then the non-grant total was 50. So it's about 50/50, right? Right? You're like, "Okay, well, that's that's fine." I mean, they're still giving a million dollars away, you know, a year, which is which is great. Now, 2023 is um they brought in $5.7 million. And then they their total expenses were just under $3.3 million.

[00:07:20]They still paid that 1.3, right? So, a little bit more because last year was 1.25. Now, they're doing 1.3. And then their payroll goes up yet again uh up to $997,000 with a million dollar in other expenses.

[00:07:40]So if we do a million into 12 months, well that uh total that comes out to $83,433 per month.

[00:07:53]83,000 per month. Amazing. Uh or $2,743 per day that they that the foundation is spending on other expenses.

[00:08:06]Yeah. Again, because all of us, we kind of go, "A million dollars. I'm not going to have that." And then you like, you know, and you don't ever think about it.

[00:08:13]You're like, "Oh, no. That's that's a lot of money. That's a lot of cash." So grants as a percentage of expenses, that goes to 39.4%.

[00:08:22]Payroll is 30% and then other expenses is another 30. So non-grant spend is 60%. And then the money that they gave out was 40%. Okay. Now remember when I compared um Invictus Australia, I did one where I compared the 11 million that they spent over five years versus the 11 million that Invictus Games spent in nine days. um they were spending 66% of their funds was going to payroll. The last three years it was like in the 60s.

[00:08:55]So, you know, for in my mind, again, I'm not like an expert in charities, but I'm just going from like other things that I've compared when I see um you know, payroll at 30%, I'm like, "Oh, okay.

[00:09:07]Well, that's that's cool." You know, now we go down to uh 2024, and here's the snapshot where you go, "Oh my goodness."

[00:09:15]So, they got $2.5 million in total revenue.

[00:09:21]Uh, their expenses were 5.1 and they still paid out 1.25 in grants, which is great. I think that's lovely.

[00:09:30]Um, you know, to still uh be helping.

[00:09:33]And then their payroll was $913,000.

[00:09:39]Okay, so kind of like the same. Now, here's here's the big like oh my gosh moment is the other expenses 2.935 their expenses triple in 2024 from one year to the next. So they had a deficit of $2.5 million. Now they still have 8 million overall 8.2 million overall but they overspent by $2.5 million.

[00:10:12]Now, remember that flippity flip that I was telling you about? So, grants as a percentage of expenses, 24.6% went to grants and the other expenses went was 75%.

[00:10:31]That's what I mean by the switcheroo.

[00:10:33]So, payroll here is 20%. still solid, but other expenses jumps up to 57.5%.

[00:10:42]Again, we don't know what those other expenses are. Um, but you know, whatever it was, it was three $2.93 million, which if you want to get astronomical here, all right, that is $244,000 a month. Well, $244,63825 a month that they were spending or $8,42.90 a day every day for 365 days. So, yeah.

[00:11:22]Well, again, I'm not going to insert my opinion. you guys can I just I can't fathom spending $244,000 in a month.

[00:11:29]It's a lot of money. All right, so here is everything. Here are the breakdowns.

[00:11:34]So you can see, you know, expenses are going up, right? Grants are going down.

[00:11:39]Payroll sort of shoots up in 2023 and then kind of balances itself out a little bit in 2024, but still at $900,000. and then the other expenses how they go from seven seven one and then 2.9 right so there's a there's a lot it there seems to be volatility I'll just put it that there seems to be volatility again this is my own opinion I'm not a professional at at charities so I'm just showing you guys the numbers and then you guys can come up with your own uh conjecture and if you go and you look here's the percentages um you know grants year one, they started out really strong, 77%. How great to be giving out that much to to help out others, and then it ends at 24% where their expenses originally were from 22% and then they ended up at 75%.

[00:12:33]So, you can see how they basically just flipped. Um and you know payroll I think see always seemed a little modest but the other expenses is what uh jumped up you know quite a bit from 2021 to 2022 and then from 23 to 24 you could see like another uh substantial jump. So it's you know it's interesting stuff and again I'll have screenshots for this at the very end if you guys want to like go ahead and take a look. uh like I always say, check my work, check my work, cross check, you know, because I am just a pilot at the end of the day. So, I'm just doing this uh for fun. But, you know, it's it it sort of it does make you contemplate a little bit.

[00:13:21]The story here is not just Archwell Foundation became Archwell Philanthropies. It's that one by one, the institutions around Harry and Megan are beginning to look less like proof of credibility and more like evidence of a larger problem.

[00:13:39]Their public life after the monarchy was built on borrowed trust from the crown, from charities, from veterans, and from causes much bigger than themselves.

[00:13:51]But outside the protection of the monarchy, trust has to be earned the unglamorous way through consistency, followthrough, transparency, and plain answers to simple questions. They've had five years to prove they can build something serious on their own. Not just royal status repackaged as philanthropy, but work substantial enough to speak for itself.

[00:14:18]At some point, vague language stops sounding visionary and begins sounding evasive. In the end, Sentale, Invictus, and Archwell all point to the same uncomfortable question. It's no longer whether Harry and Megan can attract attention. They can. The question is whether they can still be trusted with it.

[00:14:41]Until next time, I'm Rachel.

[00:14:50]All right, everyone. That is my video essay for this week. Uh, when this does go up, I will be on holiday. So, next week, don't expect a business video, although I'll try to get one done. But, uh, definitely some kind of a vlog or or something. Um, at least, you know, maybe you guys want to see a different side of me. I don't I don't know. Uh, but I will be back next. I think I'm going to look into um Earthshot because I just briefly glanced and guess what? Only 20% of the uh of their money goes to payroll. How fabulous is that? Oh my gosh. A charity that knows the view the right way.

[00:15:26]Um anyway, yeah, that's pretty much all I have. Uh if you're if you're not subscribed below, please subscribe. 70% of you are not subscribed, so please subscribe. And uh it is free. But if you'd like to support me in other ways, I do have my little cheeky satirical shop called Monteceto Minimalist where you can go get wonderful clothing such as my Monteceto Yacht Club, Retired Yacht Girl, Keep Calm and Mind the Spare, and my most recent uh launch, which was Never Complain, Never Explain Done in that sort of classic wartime poster. Um yeah, that's pretty much it.

[00:16:02]You can also uh say hi, leave a super chat, become a member, all that good stuff. But if not, then I'll see you guys in the next video. Anyway, so have a wonderful rest of your week. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you guys in the next video. Bye.