How Meghan charity gave £200k to Biden daughter's wellness centre

The Women's Wellness Spa(ce), based outside Philadelphia, exists to help women struggling to cope with past traumatic experiences.

Maybe that's why it has struck a chord with the Duchess of Sussex, who found her time as a working royal so distressing and who has now been so keen to fund the US charity's pioneering therapy work.

The organisation, founded by President Biden's daughter, Ashley, was the principal beneficiary last year of Harry and Meghan's charitable foundation, Archewell. The charity was said to 'resonate' with the Sussexes.

As a 'founding partner' and supporter of the 'trauma-informed' wellness hub, the Archewell Foundation last year gave it almost £200,000 ($250,000) to help with its work to 'create a safe space' for 'women impacted by trauma'. The centre offers nutritious food, exercise, meditation and 'therapeutic interventions', says the Archewell Foundation's 2023-2024 Impact Report – which was published on Monday, along with its tax records.

Both documents have raised striking questions about the Sussexes' philanthropic ventures – and their intriguing priorities. One of the 'therapeutic interventions' identified by Archewell is Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), a therapy which Prince Harry has said he's found useful in treating unresolved anxiety stemming from the death of his mother, Princess Diana, when he was 12.

Developed by a US psychologist in the 1980s, EMDR encourages patients to hold an unpleasant memory in their mind while a therapist instructs them to move their eyes in a specific pattern.

Advocates say EMDR can help people process disturbing feelings and memories, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Critics have dismissed it as a pseudoscience and evidence that it works has been underwhelming, although it is available on the NHS. Ashley Biden, 43, a fashion designer, philanthropist and social worker, has herself credited the therapy with helping her cope with the loss of her half-brother, Beau, who died aged 46 of brain cancer in 2015.

Archewell's £200,000 donation provides a telling insight into the Sussexes' concerns. And as the couple are buffeted by claims that their personal money-making ventures are faring less than impressively, their charity has at least been able to report some growth in its third year of filing taxes.

Its latest tax filing revealed it had received just under £4,184,000 in grants – more than double the amount it raised the previous year but much less than the £10million or so it amassed in 2021.

To accompany this good news, the Sussexes this week released a video celebrating the Foundation's work set to A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay. At the end of the video, Prince Harry says: 'Every single one of you inspire me and you inspire us every single day. So please continue to be there to support each other.'

Indeed, Archewell continues to rely heavily on the 'support' of a handful of donors. Last year, its income was almost entirely down to a single donor who contributed nearly £4million. Although this benefactor isn't named in the filing, it's understood to be Fidelity Charitable, the philanthropic arm of financial services giant Fidelity Investments. It had donated nearly £800,000 the previous year.

Some £264,000 of the remaining income to Archewell came from five separate individual contributors, who again are not named. Meanwhile, in 2023, the charity gave out just over £1million ($1.3million) to deserving causes.

The charity's tax filing also disclosed the couple's nominal one-hour-per-week involvement in Archewell's operations, which is a standard practice for directors of U.S. tax-exempt organisations.

It confirmed that Meghan and Harry do not receive any salary from their foundation – although its senior staff are well-remunerated. James Holt, a longtime Sussex flunkey and Archewell's executive co-director, earned almost £195,000 including benefits, while co-director Shauna Nep earned just over £235,000.

Archewell also paid £122,000 to Herlihy Loughran, a PR company run by Beth Herlihy, a former actress who once played a stripper in the TV soap Hollyoaks and who has worked for them since their days at Kensington Palace.

The Sussexes' charity hasn't always run quite so smoothly, of course. In September, California's Attorney General banned Archewell from raising or spending donations and listed the Foundation as 'delinquent', warning it faced action amid reports it hadn't filed its tax returns on time. Charity insiders blamed a cheque that went missing in the post. The ban was later lifted.

Meanwhile, the Sussexes' newly revealed generosity to a charity set up by a member of the clannish Biden family (as the only child of Joe and First Lady Jill, Ashley is officially the US's First Daughter) is surely no coincidence.

The Sussexes have collaborated with the Bidens on endeavours such as Harry's Invictus Games.

Although they reportedly asked the Bidens without success to give them a lift back to the US on Air Force One when they all returned from the late Queen's funeral in 2022, the Biden administration refused to release Prince Harry's visa application during a court case in New York – after campaigners sought it to see whether the Duke had lied about his drug-use to secure the crucial document – although the government said speculation of impropriety was 'unfounded'.

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Harry and Meghan's charity pays $155,000 to firm run by ex-aide who played stripper in Hollyoaks

Some have linked the Sussexes' enthusiasm for the Bidens with Meghan's enthusiasm for politics and perhaps even a future career on Capitol Hill. A vocal Democrat supporter, in 2021 she lobbied US senators by phoning them – and introducing herself as 'Meghan, Duchess of Sussex' – to support paid family leave in a budget Bill.

While her aides dismissed the claim as 'ridiculous', she was also rumoured to have put herself forward as a possible replacement for Kamala Harris when she had to relinquish her Senate seat on becoming vice president in 2021.

And while there are no reports of the two women being friends, the always fashionably immaculate Ashley is surely Meghan's kind of philanthropist. It's also undeniable that, infused as it is with the language and ideas of California-style wellness thinking they've embraced, the Women's Wellness Spa(ce) is the Sussexes' kind of charity.

It describes itself as 'a mindfully designed drop-in wellness centre for women to congregate, create, educate, and meditate'. Its space was designed by Ashley herself and aims to 'improve all aspects of wellbeing – mental, physical, spiritual, and financial – through healing ourselves, caring for one another, and acting on behalf of our communities'.

Ashley has said the centre was inspired by her previous work in the criminal justice system helping formerly incarcerated women adapt to life after release.

And Ashley has certainly had to deal with her own traumas. Like her troubled half-brother Hunter, who was pardoned of criminal offences this week by their father, Ashley has struggled with addiction, which she admitted in a diary.

The diary was later stolen and sold to a conservative group by a woman who was sentenced to a month in prison for the offence. In an impact statement to the court, Ashley said she'd been the victim of a crime in her early 20s and subsequently developed PTSD. 'The journal that was stolen was part of my efforts to heal,' she said.

Other recipients of Archewell generosity in 2023 included organisations that provide mental health support to aid workers in Israel, Gaza and Syria, as well as others supporting refugees and promoting menstrual health in Nigeria. All laudable groups but they didn't get nearly so much money as the one with the Biden connection.