Almost a year ago exactly, Prince William and Kate visited Scarborough and did an afternoon of events within the community. Kate cosplayed Meghan, there were jazz hands flying around, and after a few hours, Will and Kate left and never returned. There was one difference between that day of events versus all of their other inane busywork. The Scarborough visit was supposed to be the first of their brand-new plan to undertake “impact days,” wherein they would go into a community and donate to some specific charity so that they were not arriving empty-handed. That was their big idea, you guys. As you can imagine, after they hyped themselves and told everyone about their big keen plan, nothing happened. They’ve only done two “impact days” in the past year (while taking a two-month summer holiday too). Well, Richard Palmer at the Express has an update, and he even added some hilarious asides about how much money the Royal Foundation “donated” in Scarborough.

A year after a groundbreaking trip to the seaside town of Scarborough, Prince William and Kate are stepping up plans to bring a lasting legacy to their visits to some of Britain’s poorest communities by creating “community impact” projects providing permanent benefits. The first two pilot projects have created annual grants for young people in Scarborough and a therapy garden and allotments in Pontyclun, South Wales, one of a network of similar gardens to help mental health. More projects are on their way.

“There are plans in the works for further pilots to look at how we can deliver impact in the community in the long term,” a senior royal source said. It may not always be a huge sum of money. Aides are looking at providing benefits in kind like the garden.

Even when cash was involved, the couple’s donation to Scarborough was hardly a princely sum, sceptics might think. Newly published accounts from the couple’s Royal Foundation reveal that they donated just £13,043 towards a £345,000 fund announced on the day of their visit.

But their input was vital, according to Celia McKeon, chief executive of the Two Ridings Community Foundation, which is working with the royal couple in Scarborough.

“What the royal visit allowed us to do was to catalyse a range of donors to invest in the town,” she said. Much of the £345,000 pledged as a result of their visit will be benefitting young people for many years to come in the seaside resort, where despite beautiful sandy beaches and numerous visitor attractions almost a third of residents live in areas that are among the most deprived neighbourhoods in England. Some of it was pledged as cash to be spent when needed but the bulk of it is tied up in endowment funds paying 5 per cent interest, together creating around £25,000 each year to spend on youth projects.

Ms McKeon accepted that alone would not solve problems such as lack of opportunity in the town. But she pointed out that Two Ridings and the Royal Foundation were among numerous agencies working with the local authority, North Yorkshire County Council, to improve life in Scarborough. She also insisted that even quite small grants to youth projects “can be really transformational for young people’s lives”.

It is early days yet but in Scarborough they are just starting to see the fruits of last year’s royal visit after a grant-setting session in the summer to decide how to spend the first annual tranche of £25,000. The money went to six groups arranging various activities, ranging from a summer of arts fun, to music therapy, and youth charities offering support and advice.

William and Kate’s advocacy for marginalised groups via community impact projects complements their work in other fields, such as his new project to try to end homelessness and hers to improve the first five years of children’s lives. They readily accept they cannot achieve those goals on their own but they can use their convening powers to bring people together who can, according to aides. They can use their positions to create a national conversation that moves those topics to the top of the political agenda.

[From The Daily Express]

Just so we’re clear, they showed up in Scarborough, posed for photos, donated £13,043, briefed the media that they were donating much more and structured the whole thing so that the Scarborough youths are only getting £25,000 a year to fund a handful of miniscule projects. This is offensive, right? It’s like some form of poverty tourism for Will and Kate – they want to be seen as these impactful humanitarians, meanwhile even their bare-bones charitable giving is so small, it barely has meaning. They’re not just going around and trying to get photo-ops, they’re using really poor communities to embiggen themselves without actually doing anything to help. By the way, Earthshot is structured similarly – Peg always brags about how Earthshot Prize winners are getting £1 million, but that “prize money” is stretched out over five years. Hellish for innovators who actually needed the capital upfront to grow their business.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.