Archewell Philanthropies rebranded from its previous name, the Archewell Foundation, in late 2025. Unfortunately, the name change has not been accompanied by any apparent improvement in financial transparency or public accountability.
Despite reporting in its federal tax filings that its financial statements are independently audited, the organization has repeatedly failed to provide those audits to CharityWatch when we have requested them. CharityWatch contacted the organization by U.S. mail on January 6, 2026, requesting the audits, but received no response as of January 21st, 2026. This follows earlier written requests sent on January 22, 2024, and December 6, 2024, which were likewise ignored. An organization that claims to undergo independent audits but consistently declines to share them raises legitimate questions about its commitment to transparency.
In addition, the charity’s registration with the office of the California Attorney General (CA AG) reflects that it expired on May 15th of 2025. The most current filing reflected in the CA AG’s online database for the charity is for its fiscal year ended December 31st, 2023.
This lack of transparency and outdated information leaves donors and taxpayers without a clear, verifiable picture of how millions of dollars in charitable funds are being managed.
Archewell Philanthropies does post its fiscal year 2024 IRS tax Form 990 on its website. However, this document is inadequate for purposes of judging a charity’s financial operations and governance. IRS tax Forms 990 are not audited by an independent Certified Public Accountant (CPA) according to Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS), and are not presented according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the United States.
CharityWatch has found countless examples of charity tax filings containing information that is inaccurate, inconsistent, incomplete, and incomparable. We have also found many examples of charities with very serious financial efficiency and governance concerns receiving high scores and transparency seals from automated charity raters that rely primarily on tax form reporting. By contrast, an independent audit evaluates a charity’s internal controls, samples and reviews financial transactions, and provides donors with more assurance that reported financial information is materially accurate.
Archewell Philanthropies also posts a document on its website labeled as a 2024 “Impact” report. An “Impact Report” is similarly no substitute for an independent audit, as its purpose is to shape perceptions, not provide accountability. Such self-produced marketing documents highlight a charity’s selected programs and other activities. The contents are chosen by the charity to paint itself in a flattering light for board members, donors, and other stakeholders. Because no standard, comparable benchmarks exist for measuring impact among different charities with widely varying legal structures, causes, and programs, a charity is free to create its own goalposts and move them at will to draw the foregone conclusion that it is meeting or exceeding its impact goals.
CharityWatch is unable to provide a rating for Archewell Philanthropies based on its fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, due to the organization not responding to requests for a copy of its independent audited financial statements or making them available on its website. As a result, CharityWatch has issued the charity a “?” rating, which reflects nondisclosure of critical financial information that prevents a meaningful evaluation of accountability and transparency.
According to Archewell Philanthropies’ fiscal 2024 IRS Form 990, the organization reported raising $2,142,653 in cash contributions while spending $5,105,228 in total cash expenses during the year. The charity reports that $2 million of its 2024 contributions were received from a single donor. Though the charity spent more than twice the amount it raised in 2024, it ended the year with net assets of nearly $8.3 million due to reserves it had accumulated in prior years. The majority of the charity’s assets consist of cash, according to its tax filing.
The charity’s reporting of how it spent its cash in 2024 leaves a lot to be desired. Over 47% of its program spending is reported on one, vague line called “Other” fees for services, according to its tax filing of the same year. A schedule attached to the filing provides little more detail, describing the expense only as “outside program consultants.” Some of these include:
| Independent Contractor | Amount Paid | Purpose / Description of Services |
|---|---|---|
| M&C Saatchi World Services | $348,263 | Programmatic strategic support |
| Invisible Hand | $238,228 | Programmatic strategic support |
| Jiore Craig Mayjor Strategy | $155,850 | Programmatic strategic support |
| Dinner Party Labs | $155,850 | Programmatic strategic support |
| Herlihy Loughran | $139,753 | Programmatic strategic support |
NOTE: Archewell’s 2024 Form 990 reports that a total of six independent contractors received more than $100,000 in compensation during the year, though only the top five are itemized in its tax filing, as required by IRS rules.
Archewell Philanthropies reports that it was formed in 2020. Based on IRS Form 990 reporting, the organization raised approximately $22.5 million in total contributions during the four-year period from 2021 through 2024, averaging about $5.6 million per year. However, this average is misleading.
In fiscal year 2021 alone, the organization reported receiving $13,004,470 in contributions, amounting to well over half of its four-year total. By contrast, it raised a combined $9,480,344 during the three-year period from 2022 through 2024.
Archewell Philanthropies continues to report having only two board members, a structure that falls well short of widely accepted nonprofit governance best practices and raises legitimate concerns about independence and oversight. The board members listed include only Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex.
A two-person board lacks the ability to provide meaningful checks and balances, increases the risk of deadlock or unilateral control, and makes it difficult to ensure that key decisions are reviewed from multiple independent perspectives. Effective nonprofit governance relies on a sufficiently sized board to oversee management, safeguard charitable assets, manage conflicts of interest, and act in the best interests of the organization rather than any individual.
With so few directors, it is inherently more challenging to demonstrate independent decision-making, robust accountability, and adherence to fiduciary duties that donors and the public reasonably expect of a charity entrusted with millions of dollars in public funds.
Independent audited financial statements are a basic expectation for charities that raise and spend millions of public dollars annually. Archewell Philanthropies’ continued failure to provide these documents, despite claiming they exist, prevents CharityWatch and other interested members of the public from assessing how funds are managed and whether spending aligns with the charity’s stated mission.
If Archewell Philanthropies chooses to provide its audited financial statements to CharityWatch in the future, we may update the organization’s rating at that time.
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| Charity | |
|---|---|
| Archewell Philanthropies |
