Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Royal Foundation to place ‘particular focus’ on increasing diversity

Diversity and equality will be ‘considered, monitored and reported on’, report says

Prince William and Kate Middleton attend the Beating of the Retreat at the Palace of Holyroodhouse on May 27, 2021 (Getty Images)

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Royal Foundation is increasing its efforts to create a more diverse workforce, a new report has revealed.

The charity’s Trustees and Auditor’s report for 2020 said targets for diversity and equality “have not previously been set” but going forward they will be “considered, monitored and reported on”.

It said diversity “is always considered” in the recruitment of trustees but improving this across the charity “has been a particular focus”.

The Royal Foundation was originally set up in 2009 by Prince William and Prince Harry.

Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle later joined as patrons, but in 2019 the Duke and Duchess of Sussex split from the joint charity to set up their own foundation.

The Royal Foundation currently oversees several charitable initiatives which focus on conservation, child development and mental health.

In 2016, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry launched Heads Together, a campaign that aims to tackle stigma and change the conversation around mental health.

In 2020 it also launched a Covid-19 response fund, giving approximately £1.8 million to ten charities supporting frontline workers and those struggling with their mental health.

Earlier this year, the Duchess of Cambridge announced that the foundation had opened a new research centre that aims to raise awareness of the impact of the first five years in child development.

The Centre for Early Childhood comes after a report found that children’s earliest years shape some of the challenges people face in adulthood, such as addiction, poor mental health, difficult family dynamics and tendencies towards violence.

“From pregnancy onwards, the context in which we develop matters too. Supporting healthy development in early childhood goes far beyond looking after the physical needs of babies and infants,” the report said.

In a video posted to Twitter, the duchess said the centre will “change the way we think about early childhood and transform lives of generations to come”.

“I wanted to understand what more we could do to help provide some of today’s toughest social challenges and what more we could do to help with the rising rates of poor mental health,” she said.