Diana's Charity Work and Patronages

[Ish]

According to Wikipedia, Diana reduced her charity work drastically the day after her divorce - resigning from over 100 charities.

 

[Curryong]

According to Sally Bedell Smith's biography of Diana, she had made up her mind earlier to only maintain links with those charities that reflected her own emotional needs.

She kept six; the homeless charity Centrepoint, giving her a link to the dispossessed; the little known Leprosy Mission, the National AIDS Trust, which Diana felt had given her her first meaningful role in public life; the English National Ballet, because Diana loved ballet; the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children and the Royal Marsden Hospital, allowing her to help the sick and dying.

This move was not well done. Some charities Diana dropped only read about it in the Press, which was largely condemnatory. I think it was one of those impulsive decisions she sometimes made without thinking things out properly. Diana had never been a measured or very cautious person and in the last years of her life this trend continued its erratic way.

In fact in that last twelve months of life she didn't do very much for the six charities that remained. She became very caught up in the anti Land Mines campaign, gave some publicity to an Australian medical research facility Hasnet Khan had admired, and also some American charities supported by friends Katherine Graham, owner of the Washington Post, and the Harper's Bazaar editor Liz Tilberis.

 

[Osipi]

I think what was seen with Diana's charities post divorce was the changeover from royal to personal. She no longer had a "duty requirement" to work and support the "Firm" and with being outside of the "Firm", there wasn't the support and coverage of such events as it would relate to a "royal visit" as in personal security and sweeps of a venue or a bump up of the numbers in the Court Circular for her engagements. The public ate it up though no matter what she did.

She kept what was meaningful to her personally and perhaps she went about it the wrong way but that was just Diana's impulsive nature.

 

[Denville]

I think that seh was worn out, by hte last year or so of her life. ANd she didn't have the same support system that she had had as a full time royal. So she was left to the advice adn support of a few people who weren't professionals and whose advice was probalby not very good at times. And being tired and burnt out, I think she just did things as and when. I can understand that the charities she kept - who were staffed by committed professional people - may have felt annoyed at her on and off ways, but I think she coud not help herself.
When she was working for "The Firm", she had good professional helpers, advising her and making sure that she had everything she needed to do an engagement, and she had a respect for the queen and the RF at heart, and didn't want to let them down... so she turned up, usually even if she was ill or whatever, and her staff were good at their job and were able to do what was necessary to make the job go well...
but when she had cut back her staff, fallen out wtih some of them, and was dependent on friends and a few staff like Burrell, to suggest what she should do, in terms of work.. she was a bit lost.
So she made wrong choices, found it ahrd to commit etc.
Jephson I think it was said that he had found work for Diana to do, in the arts area etc but that when DI found that she had to commit to see these projects through to the end she got nervous and lsost interest. I think that her tiredness and depression made her fearful of a long term commitment...

 

[Mermaid1962]

I remember when that happened. It came as a shock at the time; and honestly, it looked like it was pay-back for not retaining the HRH. Diana said that it was because her charities deserved Royal patronage.

According to Wikipedia, Diana reduced her charity work drastically the day after her divorce - resigning from over 100 charities.

 

[Denville]

I think that that was true, she wasn't an HRH, adn she wanted to scale back her large no of patronages, and leave them free to get a royal patron. but she kept charities taht were meaningful to her or that might not survive wthout her patronage. I think she intended to have just a few and be able to devote more time and attention to them, but it dind't work out that well, because she was worn out and not sure what she was doing. She was prone to be easily influenced by whatever caught her attention at the time, and I think she just wasn't able to commit and see a project through

 

[Mermaid1962]

Your comment makes a lot of sense to me, Denville. Diana was likely exhausted from all the upheaval, particularly during the last few years of being Princess of Wales. The sale of her evening dresses showed that she was going to make a clean break with the past, but I'm not entirely sure that she knew what her charitable endeavours would be once the divorce went through.

 

[Countessmeout]

I think that that was true, she wasn't an HRH, adn she wanted to scale back her large no of patronages, and leave them free to get a royal patron. but she kept charities taht were meaningful to her or that might not survive wthout her patronage. I think she intended to have just a few and be able to devote more time and attention to them, but it dind't work out that well, because she was worn out and not sure what she was doing. She was prone to be easily influenced by whatever caught her attention at the time, and I think she just wasn't able to commit and see a project through

She kept only six patronages. Four of them certainly wouldn't have suffered without. The national ballet, national AIDS, Great Ormond and royal Marsden would have all been fine. Leprosy and centerpoint were possibly the only two that needed her publicity to carry on. It seems she simply hand picked the ones she felt closest to.

 

[TLLK]

I think that that was true, she wasn't an HRH, adn she wanted to scale back her large no of patronages, and leave them free to get a royal patron. but she kept charities taht were meaningful to her or that might not survive wthout her patronage. I think she intended to have just a few and be able to devote more time and attention to them, but it dind't work out that well, because she was worn out and not sure what she was doing. She was prone to be easily influenced by whatever caught her attention at the time, and I think she just wasn't able to commit and see a project through

Excellent points Denville and I too agree that she was just overwhelmed and exhausted by the time the divorce was over. While the announcement that she was resigning was obviously a shock, I can understand her reaction. Now while some of her larger ones would have likely not needed a high profile royal patron, some would require one.

 

[Denville]

She kept only six patronages. Four of them certainly wouldn't have suffered without. The national ballet, national AIDS, Great Ormond and royal Marsden would have all been fine. Leprosy and centerpoint were possibly the only two that needed her publicity to carry on. It seems she simply hand picked the ones she felt closest to.

I tink she did pick ones that were close to her heart, but I beleive she did hold on to a couple that it was felt might really need her patronage, and she chose the Ballet because she liked Ballet and she wanted something that was an enjoyable thing as well as jobs dealing with the less fortunate.

 

[anbrida]

In her books, Diana's friend Simone Simmons gave a reason why Diana resigned almost all her patronages after she divorced

She thought long and hard before she decided to cut back on her commitments. We talked about it on and off for months before I told her that a lot of charity money never gets to where it is supposed to go. She had no inkling of that, of course, being Diana, took it to heart. She asked all her charities for a summary of their accounts. When she discovered how much money was go on `administration', she got very upset. `Some of these charities are just cashing in on my name', she complained.

Reference: ``Diana -- The Last Word", by Simone Simmons and Ingrid Seward, 1 July 2005.

 

[anbrida]

A sweet story

The late Reverend Tony Lloyd was so moved by how much the congregation reflected the woman she had known. ``Diana had so much compassion for the important people as well as the little people and the funeral was an example of this. I sat next to the mother of a boy who was in the hospital at the same time as Prince Charles, and I said to this lady, `Did you know the princess?' She told me she didn't, but that the princess visited Prince Charles one night and then did the ward rounds. And she took the name and address of this boy and wrote to him every month until she died. Which was staggering.

Reference: Rosalind Coward, ``Diana: The Portrait", 30 Aug 2004.

 

[Dman]

Wow, I didn't know any of this. Thanks anbrida for the highlights.

 

[anbrida]

No one suggest that Diana should take whole credits for the sign of the Ottawa Treaty. Actually it is ridiculous to suggest so, because I think Diana would feel shame about the final treaty. The neglect of the mine victim in the Treaty was evident. Such neglect had been mentioned particularly in the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize lecture given by Rae McGrath on behalf of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines

Anti-personnel mines do not only sever limbs, they can break the human spirit. We talk not of mine victims, but of survivors – but to survive such trauma requires support, encouragement and love. That responsibility must not be left to the survivors' family and friends, who are often struggling themselves against poverty and the damaging effects of conflict, but to a greater family – the human family. In most mine affected countries we, the international community, must offer more than the surgeon's knife and protheses as support to those who survive the blast of a landmine – in some countries even that basic level of care may not be available. This is not support – it is little more than first aid. In the same way as the Ottawa Treaty is only the first step towards a global ban, so protheses should be seen as the first stage in the support process for the victim of a mine blast. That is not the case today, and the reason for this lack of response is evident and shames us all – we simply do not care enough.

Make sure the victims would not be neglected was Diana's primal goal in this campaign. It's evident that she had strong determination to push strong language about rehabilitation of mine victims in the treaty. I really don't think Diana would be proud of the Ottawa Treaty, not to say take credit for it.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

What do you think was Princess Diana's favorite charity?

 

[Kitty1224]

In her books, Diana's friend Simone Simmons gave a reason why Diana resigned almost all her patronages after she divorced



Reference: ``Diana -- The Last Word", by Simone Simmons and Ingrid Seward, 1 July 2005.

I think its sad how many charities today the actual money doesn't go to where its supposed to go

 

[Kitty1224]

What do you think was Princess Diana's favorite charity?

Probably AIDS and the English National Ballet.