Does Kate Middleton really visit her patronages less than other royals?

190 thoughts on “Does Kate Middleton really visit her patronages less than other royals?”

  1. Wow, well done on an EPIC post.

    There are some very interesting numbers here. Remember Harry works two days a week (40% of his time) with army veterans, in a private capacity. If he were Patron of that his numbers would shoot through the roof, leaving WK railing behind.

    I suspect there is a very definite stance that Harry must stay behind/level with WK, lest they be exposed.

    1. Thank you. This one took quite a while.

      If private visits counted in the Court Circular, these numbers would be very different. All I can count, though, is what is made public. Also, if the royals were patron of all the organizations they visit on behalf of a certain cause, these numbers would be very different.

      1. Considering Kate supposedly has so few charities so that she can dedicate time to them and that she has the least number of charities and activities supported even though they are not patron (Harry, for example has quite a few) of any Royal, her numbers are embarassing. What does she do all day, well, a better question is, what has she done all day since she graduated Uni, I guess… Not much has changed, except she now has her children to play with…

        Your analysis is beautifully done, kudos to you, it must have taken such a long time. Great read. 🙂

        1. Thanks Limabeany.

          Re Kate playing with her kids: I’m pretty sure that’s all she does, because she has a bunch of staff to do everything else for them.

  2. Thank you for all your work as always KMR – this must have taken ages and it was certainly interesting to see the numbers.
    Although percentage wise, the numbers stack up, i can’t help feeling that it is a lot less commitment to visit 50% of your patronages if you have 12 opposed to 100. I think that Kate only stacks up so well, because she has so few – so although she is visiting the same, if not more percentage wise – she is actually doing a lot less work. If Sophie can visit 40 patronages multiple times, Kate should be able to visit 12 patronages at least once.
    It would be interesting to see what would happen if Kate had, say 50, patronages – would she stick to her 60% or would she stick to visiting around 10 a year. Food for thought.

    1. Yes, definitely. Kate could visit all of her patronages 60 times over before Philip visited all of his. It’s easy to visit all of your patronages if you only have 6, or even 12. It’s impossible to visit all 766. Obviously, if things were different, these numbers would be very different. I did calculate how many patronages they visited but I tried to focus on the overall number of interactions they had with their patronages since that percentage is more telling. If Kate had more patronages, she would have a smaller percentage visited, just like the other royals. But even if Kate doubled her engagements and patronage visits, she would still have the same percentage. So that percentage being in the same ballpark as the others is what’s interesting to me.

  3. Excellent work KMR. I think you deserve a masters degree on Kate’s performance. What’s more, your research can serve as a thorough reference for her PR team. I’m sure Jason will find it extremely useful.

    I think I have to go through your post again but as a first observation I can say that there may be a basic required number of patronages’ visits for royals and that expectatios fall around this numbers irrespective of how many patronages they’ve got or how much work and appearances they do overall. It shows you that the PR argument about keeping a limited number of patronages in order to focus on them, does not work this way after all. Anyway, I may be wrong on this. However, Sophie has my respect because she has exceeded the standards and proved her devotion to her causes.

    1. I agree with Elina and Candice.

      Thank you KMR!

      Here is a site on km during the ‘waiting years’ –
      http:princessdianafriend.tumblr.com/post/36763313462/kate-smoking-and-some-serious-drinking

      1. Kate looks so different, doesn’t she? Obviously, she has had work done.
        Too thin, I say. By the time she is in her 50s, she is going to look like she’s in her 80s, if she keeps this up.

  5. What a magnificent effort, KMR; many thanks for your massive undertaking. It provides a solid basis for further and informed discussion.

    From your statistics it appears that the BRF works to a percentage of visits per year to charities they patronise, apart from Sophie, who puts the trio to shame. It tells some of the story of royal engagements but not how involved the particular royal is in charity work overall.

    My interest also lies in the number of all charitable activities undertaken overall as this gives a truer indication of each royal’s level of engagement eg:

    Could all engagement related to the charity patronised be recorded? It seems fair to include video messages, guest editing, private meetings etc.

    Could engagements with charities other than those patronised be recorded? It seems fair to have a range of non-patronage charity-related activities count as work. I wonder if this data were to be included whether it would provide a different set of figures? You suggest this in your post.

    Percentages can be misleading if 6 visits equals 100%, whereas 40 visits equals only 50%!

    William intimates that so much more work happens behind the scenes, but what does this entail? Unless it is recorded in the CC, there does not seem any way of knowing the true scope and extent of any royal’s ‘work’. Regardless, it is clear that the young (ish) trio need to do much better.

    1. “Unless it is recorded in the CC, there does not seem any way of knowing the true scope and extent of any royal’s ‘work’.”
      It doesn’t help that the CC engagements are counted differently for some royals.

      Royals of Charles and Sophie’s caliber obviously prepare themselves behind the scenes.

    2. “It provides a solid basis for further and informed discussion.”

      Exactly. I think a lot of times we, myself included, hype up the other royals while saying that Kate should be doing more, etc., but that’s not necessarily the case. I remember about two years ago I had a discussion on here with a commenter who would always praise every other royal in every other royal house as working so much harder than Kate, but then I looked into how much they actually do and it actually doesn’t come out in the other royals’ favor because their families do less overall than the Brits.

      I think when we do discuss how Kate compares to other royals, it’s so much more helpful to be informed and be able to discuss the comparisons in an informed way.

      In terms of numbers not being a true determination of how involved a royal is with a charity, absolutely. Unfortunately the public numbers are the only thing we can really use to compare. We don’t know how truly involved each royal is behind the scenes, or really how involved they are during engagements, since we’re not there.

      The reason I didn’t include video messages and such is that I only know of William, Kate, and Harry doing video messages like that. I don’t know of Camilla, Sophie, or Philip doing those. All I had for the non-Kate royals was the court circular since I didn’t follow them as thoroughly (or at all with Philip). So I didn’t think it was fair to include things like that for Kate when I couldn’t for the others purely because of my lack of knowledge (and lack of knowing what to look up).

      In terms of counting private meetings, I can’t because I don’t know of them, which royals are doing them, how much, etc. I can only count what is made public.

      In terms of counting non-patron but cause related visits, I didn’t think of that when I was going through the CC for the other royals, I only thought of that when I started writing my article about Kate and by then I just didn’t want to go back through for the others because it would have taken a long time. I would definitely be interested in knowing those figures, and I was thinking about recording those as we progress through this year and maybe revisiting this type of article at the end of the year. I do think the figures would be very different if I were to include all visits around a cause rather than just focusing on the actual patronages.

      1. In the interest of using a shared metric, I really do have a hard time counting the private meetings, personally. Whenever I’m told that Kate had a meeting or received somebody, or if someone assures me that Kate is doing all kinds of work behind the scenes, I can’t trust it. Sophie has the business acumen and experience to actually be able to do valuable work in private, but if I can’t trust Kate’s unphotographed meetings, I can’t really assume that Sophie’s are legitimate, either.

        1. ABKM
          Shared metrics require a dose of common sense, but it makes sense.
          And given that the Monarchy really only survivies by being visible I wonder why private meetings for someone so high profile exist at all.

          Also, the bulk of Harry’s events gets decreased as under “personal time” so it’s not counted as official. We do see the outcome of his many private meetings. Nearly all of Invictus Games was accomplished in private and personal meetings. Yet, your point still holds as we can’t know unless we were there.

          1. In Spain, Queen Letizia has meetings with her various charities but those are made public. The press photograph her coming and going from the meeting, and the royal website releases photos from the meeting along with information about what was discussed. The same thing happens in Sweden with the royals there. The royal website releases photos and information about what was discussed for meetings with charities.

          2. That would be a good way to balance the privacy of the meeting with verification of the work. I remember a lot of us suggested something of the sort for one of Kate’s unphotographed get-togethers in 2015 or 2014.

        2. Spot on.

          Much more public charitable public service is. mandatory of a ‘senior royal and heir to the heir family, to be digging or counting private meetings as work/service to the needy.

      2. Good on Richard Palmer for having the generosity to acknowledge your work and, implicitly, its quality, KMR.

        I do think counting non-patron but cause related interactions as the year progresses will give a fuller picture of a certain level of work undertaken ie face-to-face visits. Unfortunately, unless officially disclosed and verifiable evidence is provided, any other substantial interactions with patron causes behind the scenes are moot. And to be fair, if a cause only has one function a year to attend, then I guess the royal can only attend one function.

        Percentages also change once full-time and part-time working status is factored in. If a royal works, say, 0.2 days a week x ‘y’ weeks/months per year, what does that look like? Do we include length of visit? In a previous post, KMR, you mentioned that the Queen diarises her official vacation times. Do the other royals follow suit? I ask only to get a clearer picture of work patterns, not to make a judgement. We know that the trio has had 6-7 weeks ‘off’ since mid-December 2015. Is that, effectively, their annul leave? Are there months (perhaps the Christmas season) where there is historically no activity? Are we talking of ‘x’ months of the year available for duties? The reason I think clarification is needed is because PR too often obfuscates reality, drumming up thin stories to keep certain royals in the public mind for no reason at all.

        This is a very good way (and free to a point) of collecting/organising data: http://daytum.com/

        Based on officially released data from the CC, these are the categories that could provide some illumination of work undertaken:

        NAME OF ROYAL
        • Working status (eg 0.2, 1.0 etc) over ‘x’ weeks/months of availability

        PATRONAGES
        • Number of face-to-face interactions (= events)
        • Number of other interactions, if any ( = guest editor, video message etc)

        RELATED CAUSES
        • Number of face-to-face interactions
        • Number of other interactions, if any
        • Headlining the event/dual headlining/ accompanying spouse

        PRIVATE ACTIVITIES OF SUBSTANCE
        • Work undertaken on ongoing basis and of substance ( = Invictus Games, Sentebale. could give number of days in Africa etc, even if this is just an approximation).

        OTHER ACTIVITIES
        • Dictated by events of the moment / filling in for another royal

        TOURS
        • Number of days x number of engagements. Drilling down further to distinguish and rank heavy duties from light duties from fun/rest days is needed here

        OFFICIAL BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY EVENTS
        • Those that are mandatory eg Trooping of the Colour
        • State events eg with visiting dignatories

        PERSONAL DONATIONS
        • I know both the Queen and Prince Charles have given private donations due to natural disasters here in Australia eg Bushfires, floods.

        Unless you use similar counting methods for the European royals as you do for the BRF, it seems best to put them aside at present.

        Sorry for the long post, KMR! Hope this adds to the conversation/be considered for 2016 tallies. I agree that we can damn one royal and raise another sometimes out of frustration rather than through evidence. It also goes to show how perception can trump fact if, when new to a job, you don’t jump in straight away. One of my former bosses (a CEO) said that in a new job you really have 6 months, max. 12, to show the company what you can do. After that, perceptions are hard to shift.

        1. But with charities, you don’t need a function to attend. You can just stop by the charity and see what they are doing. Especially because most of them have several locations she could ‘pop’ into. The National portrait Gallery is the exception and needs a function however. The rest of her charities she doesn’t have to wait for a gala to attend or something fancy. She could just go and participate, aka get involved. But she seems to only wait for functions.

          1. I agree Overit.
            But aren’t we – or rather KMR, who is doing all the heavy lifting here – limited to data provided in the Court Circular? Don’t they only record formal visits of whatever kind?
            My goal is transparency: to see the range and level of work actually performed with no smoke and mirrors PR to distract us!

          2. Going in private means she doesn’t necessarily need to trot out new clothes to be seen in. Going in privately means we won’t see her working so very, very hard to support her charities.

            Going in private (like Harry) may not make the CC, so with that and not getting new clothes, she’s not going to do it.

            Also, Kate is a gala girl. Give her a reason to put on a pretty new dress and she’s there. All she has to do is smile at the camera, chatter at a few people, watch a film, listen to a few people talk and go home. Not actually look involved like she may have to do at a public charity visit.

        2. Thanks for the categories, Jen, but this article took a long time to do and if you, Herazeus, and others are right about how wrong my data is then it’s not worth my time to do another article like this one.

          1. My dear KMR I think ( but may be wrong )that Churchill said there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Your hard work here is hugely appreciated by all your KMR’s . I am an economist and accountant , so could your figures be shown differently, interpreted differently ? Yes. So what do they offer? A really sound and honest spring board from which to judge Kate. I looked at the detail of your report and understand the complexity of your thought process and fully appreciate the time you have taken . Can your view be shouted down? Yes, but so could anybody else’s who only has access to publically available information. You have done a truly amazing piece of research and I am sure others will agree with me on that, so thank you and keep it up. You keep challenging us which is good. You have even challenged my deep seated hatred of Camilla. You are I think young enough to be my daughter but I am constantly amazed by your perspective, kindness and innovative approach.

          2. I thought I had edited my post but it doesn’t seem to be there It was Disraeli not Churchill -two of our very greatest Prime Ministers! I added it I had hoped before Art Historian corrected me!!

          4. Thanks Birdy. You’re right that I only have what’s publicly available. Counting private visits or quality of visits is not possible with the information available to me.

          5. I’m with Birdy on this one KMR. I think you did a great job on this piece and statistics, just like words, can be read and interpreted differently by different people/groups depending on the outcome that they are seeking. For me it was just further proof that Kate really doesn’t pull her weight in her position. While percentage-wise she may seem to be holding her own against other royals, reality is that her numbers don’t compare to the others and that’s just a hard cold fact.

            Keep up the great work!

          7. I didn’t say your data was wrong. Your post jump-started possibilities that I find exciting. I sincerely hope this is the first in a series of data-driven articles that you may consider doing. It cuts through the ‘white noise’ of the PR machine. The response has been incredibly positive. The proposed categories align well with your Appearance Totals section.

            My professional work is in information design, so making complex ideas clear and understandable is my goal. On a personal level I am deeply suspicious of a family that takes public monies but shrouds itself in misdirection to elude accountability.

            I’m certainly no statistician, but applaud the idea of taking the publicly available CC to focus on facts, not spin.

          8. I forgot to say that I appreciate the length of time the post took. As Birdy says, you can interpret the data in many ways dependent on the initial question asked. It strikes me that I’m not as nice as you. When I hear ‘keen’ to ‘work’ I want to know what ‘keen’ looks like when viewed through the prism of weeks available x number/categories of engagements. Same with the causes taken up and dropped. The impact of data stripped down to discrete questions negates the PR fluff. I like that.

    3. I agree that the percentages are very misleading. With how few patronages Kate has, there is really no excuse for not visiting them all.

    4. In addition to Countess Sophie’s hardwork – she also seem to be the designated royal to edit km very low public meet greets – NY 9/11 Memorial visit, 100 Women in Hedge Fund charity and goodwill events, to name a few.

    5. “Percentages can be misleading if 6 visits equals 100%, whereas 40 visits equals only 50%!”

      Exactly Jen. If you have a task list with 12 tasks for a year it’s easy to achieve 100% while a task list with 766 tasks is much harder to get through (especially if you’re doing it every year for 60+ years and you’re over 90).

      I think the real number of engagement to patronages is showing much more how not involved Kate is in charity work. If we also rate the quality (bulk engagements at the end of the year or consistent engagements all through the year) and type (e.g. red carpet) of the engagments and the time spent and number of people met I think Kate’s ratings will look even worse.

      BTW there is no such thing as full-time or part-time royal. Will got the senior royal job when he turned 21 and he was made Counsellor of State. As his wife Kate is a senior royal too.

      JMO

      1. Oh, I was unsure of the full-time/ part-time royal thing. I’ve read it before and I translated it as meaning that, say, William works ‘x’ days per week for Air Rescue, hence 0.3 of his week theoretically could be channeled into BRF.

        1. Oh, sorry Jen. The full-time/part-time was not aimed at you but the general discussion. Either you are a working royal or you are not. I think the part-time royal is an invention by the media (?) to explain what Will does or rather doesn’t do. Before the wedding there were already some reporters wondering why the heir to the heir didn’t work like all the royals so close to the throne had before him at the same age.

          “The problem princes (2009)” on youtube is always a nice reminder that Kate is only partly to blame for her less than stellar work ethic if her husband is her role model regarding royal work.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pe17SzFv5Y (Will’s diary starts at 2.20 and later they talk about his military career and his many vacations)

          1. Thanks Sarah, and also My2Pence, for the clarification re. ‘part-time’ royals.

            Oh Sarah, I watched the youtube video! Unbelievable. Breathtakingly awful to see what has gone on… But the saddest thing is that the documentary looked to William to make the monarchy relevant. We all know what has happened in the 6 years since that program was made.

      2. KMR, thank you for the massive amount of effort you put in here.

        The “part-time royal” thing came from W&K’s PR I suspect. There is no such thing as part-time royal. Sophie and Edward tried having outside jobs and doing royal engagements. It didn’t work, now they work hard only for the Firm. William is second in line, together they have massive senior royal perks (largest Kensington space, Anmer). They are senior royals and as senior royals, they should be working full-time as royals.

        Charles and Anne both do a massive amount – and they have outside companies and estates to oversee (The Duchy, Gatcombe Park). Yes, they have estate managers, but they still do loads of royal work and those other things too.

        1. Yes, W&K have proven they have no issues “walking the walk”, but are clearly not interested in “talking the talk”. Guess they’ll continue to leave that to their elders till…..???

  6. Really well done and well-researched article! My take-away is that for those charities I’m involved with, is to try and commit and assist. Just being a member is not enough. Your article did not mention monetary donations. Do royals do that at all? Are there any figures? I mean look at Bill and Melinda Gates-incredible. And the royals do have some amount of money.

    1. As far as I am aware, the royals do not (usually) donate their own money. I know Charles has in the past donated some of his own money to various projects, and if I remember correctly W&K&H donated about 2,000 or 5,000 dollars to a flood relief thing a year or so ago, but usually they don’t donate their own money (or at least it’s not made public).

      1. We’re always hearing about William donating his air ambulance salary to charity, too. I guess that’s technically his money, albeit briefly.

        2. Great Point ABKM
          A little refresher on that.
          EAAA had William’s salary donated to them for a job they created for him. Being they are a charity this was fair. W’s contract required him to work 0 hours for part time pay and it was granted to him in full upon his entering into that contract.
          So, it’s likely (and als common practice) that money has been gaining interest for well over a year now. His PR said it would be donated, but never said when.

          With the news of his wanting to create his own charity foundation that umbrellas out to others the money might be donated there and filtered through.

          That he has yet to name a charity deserves side eye imo.

          1. I completely agree that the charity to which it was going should have been announced by now. A lot of people have said it on here before–and I concur–that it’s strange to take money from one charity and give it to another. Maybe Jason will come out and tell us that he just returns it to EAAA and has been all along; that’s the only way that I think it makes sense.

          2. As I have said before Will should simply not draw a salary. In the UK there are very significant costs in employing someone – NI, pension contributions etc. If Will donates his salary to another charity EAAA will still incur very significant costs.

          3. Birdy
            While EAAA may not have had an ideal outcome linking themselves with William they have not come out worse.
            They do still have their new heli they would not have received without this bump to the top of the list given from William association. I cite the last few years of requests for that.

            And while there was the story of them needing funds for a better break room they have seen a momentary/monitary bump in donations that would not have happened without William on board.

            Of course he could have done more, but EAAA i’m certain knew the deal. They came out better off.

            And in a way William did not draw a salary. The EAAA took a specific donation made for his salary to pay him. The EAAA took no loss for his salary so it’s a stretch for me to mark it against him. Now, reinvesting that salary to the EAAA is another matter imo.

          4. EAAA is an outside company with serious insurance issues. William has to be paid in some way for that insurance to cover him. That stated, it should have been a token amount, not a full salary. The fact that he still hasn’t donated the money and that idea isn’t being discussed anymore? Very interesting.

  7. I knew I liked Sophie!

    “There’s a time and place for being an ornament as such, or shaking hands and being at an engagement and showing support in that way, but I think there’s an awful lot more [to be achieved] from actually doing stuff.”
    Is there video evidence of this quote? Currently doubled over at the thought of quoted sentence being uttered by NormalBill.

    As for Harry. I really wish he would get his own office under the CH umbrella.
    It’s hard to rate him on his own merit because the golden child reigns supreme at kp.

    Kate has been married for five years now and I have little hope that she will get any better. It’ll be interesting to see the pretzels her future pr team twists themselves into trying to sell the cambridges as a solid heir team.

    *As usual, what an outstanding post, kudos, KMR!

    1. They do NEITHER. They make no difference with a hands-on approach AND they won’t be an ornament. And I agree with you, no way was he that eloquent on his own.

      They think a stream-lined monarchy will led to less scrutiny and criticism when in reality it will focus the media and the people directly on ONLY them and ONLY they will be held responsible for their actions. There will be no Prince Andrew scandal to distract from how much money they spent in one year; there will be no Princess’s baby announcement to distract from a leak of George’s bad grades. There will be no Princess Anne to trot out when Kate has disappeared for three months because she had to shop for George’s college dorm room or something. Etc. etc. etc.

      It will only serve to prove how completely spoiled and irrelevant they truly are.

      1. Good point bluejay! Also, I think that by excluding more family members from the “official” family they are portraying themselves really as a firm or business and less as a real family. I think it will make them less relatable. Relatability is also something that helps shield them from bad press.

      2. Well said bluejay. By having less royals running around, more of the focus and criticism will fall on the royals remaining. Because the others royals will not be around to be scapegoats.

      3. It will be extremely difficult to justify spending $600 million a year on six working royals. If they only doing a handful of engagements a year and keep costing hundreds of millions? Republic UK will be giddy.

  8. Wow, what a post!! I shudder thinking about how much time and effort it took putting this together!! Kudos KMR!!

    I have to say it’s a bit disheartening to see how little the Duchess does with her first main causes, addiction and children’s hospice. I can only guess that she’s moved on from these causes because ewww she might have to interact with addicts or sick children. It will be interesting to see how long she stays interested in the issues surrounding mental health, because you know all those people with mental health issues.

    It was mentioned in a prior post but I think it bears repeating, it seems as though Jason is desperately trying to find a “cause” that will stick to the Duchess, a charity that will synonymous with the Duchess, similar to Diana and AIDS. I imagine trying to rid the Duchess of the moniker “Patron of Peter Jones” is taking some doing, considering the number of visits she makes there yearly.

    Lastly, I wonder if there is a set number of engagements the Duchess is willing to attend each year and if that number is filled by attending “royal’ engagements, galas, sporting events, etc, than the number of her charity visits falls accordingly. And keeping with that train of thought, since she will be going on tour this year it will be interesting to see if the number of her charity visits declines.

    1. I was shocked that Kate has done so little with EACH. I never really paid that much attention to it and the PR kept pushing the palliative care thing on us and I thought she must have been really focusing on them. But nope.

      If Kate drops mental health the way she dropped her other Big Causes, I will be incredibly peeved since mental health is such a personal cause for me. It already annoys me that Kate is being given credit for bringing all this awareness to mental health and changing the conversation and stigma around it when she really has not done that much for that cause and she hasn’t done jack for it for a month and a half. Then if she were to just get bored and drop it, I’d be incredibly peeved.

      1. I think Kate would lose whatever credibility lingers if she dropped another cause for her to champion. A better question for her to ask is, “Who can benefit from the profile I have been given through marriage?” rather than, “Who makes me feel more comfortable?”

  9. I LOVE this article! Thank you so much for doing it 😀

    I know this is implicit but is interesting that Kate is actually a ‘volunteer’ for the Scouts and yet she only did two events for them in 2012 where she volunteered, breaking the rules because you can not take your dog to these encounters, not to mention she even had lunch alone not did the kids she was ‘volunteering’ and helping.

    Another thing is she was not the sole patron of the 100WHF initiatives, William, Kate and Harry took it as part of their role as patron of their own foundation, if I’m not mistaken only Harry and Kate had events them 100WHF and it is a three year agreement.

    I absolutely agree when you say their PR team tries to sell the (wrong) idea they are doing and focussing a lot on their patronages. I had noticed they are not far behind other royals, one of the reasons I was excited for this article I wanted to know if I was wrong, however all the other royals have much more than a hand full of patronages and they do not have their PR team feeding that they do a lot for them – That is why I expect more from William, Kate and Harry.

    1. I know Kate is a “volunteer” for the Scouts but I lumped that in with her other patronages because the CC counted those visits as public engagements rather than something she was volunteering her non-working time to do. But she really hasn’t done much with them either especially after they moved out of Wales.

      Yes, Kate was a Joint Patron of the 100WHF with Harry and it was just for three years since the 100WHF was donating to their charities during those years. That’s why Kate didn’t do anything with them in 2014, because that was Harry’s year. Who knows what will happen to that patronage this year.

      It’s because of W&K&H’s PR that people expect them to be working with their charities more than the royals who have more charities. The line sold to us is that the younger three keep the number of charities they patron low in order to spend more time with them, do more for those causes, but they don’t actually. It’s a bummer, but I can accept the other royals not doing as much for their patronages because they do have so many, and Philip and Camilla do a lot with their spouses as “royal duty” stuff which leaves less time for their patronages. But the younger three have no excuse because the line being sold to us is literally that they work more for their charities than the other royals do, but that’s just not the case.

      1. Kate was listed as “occasional volunteer” and the palace said it would be strictly private. Ridiculously enough some of it got counted in the CC just like giving birth to Charlotte (but not to George) but even her “volunteering” has been deleted for some time now from the patronages & charities list. The real patron is HM.

        1. I agree Sarah. If her volunteering was private than why was it counted as work. They are counting anything now to boost her numbers!

      2. Sophie has taken up the 100WHF banner as far as I know for a few years, thankfully!

        As always a fantastic article. I’m not surprised by the data at all, and really commend you on putting this together.

        Like the rest of you it’s just puzzling when one has such a massive platform to not do anything with it. And I believe like the other issues mental health will be dropped when it’s not chic or cool for Kate to do anything with it, William too. That’s how they–especially she–rolll(s). She has done little and gotten all the credit, which as you all know angers me to no end. She is not Charles or Sophie or Philip or the Queen who DO read articles, prepare for their events, and are knowledgeable and admit they are not experts and defer to said experts. Getting credit like Kate is some expert on mental health is irritating beyond belief. I am glad it is an area they have focused on, but it could be so much better.

        1. Ellie, 100WHF is a massive organization, Sophia did not take from the younger ones, they support different parts of the same organization. Sophie the “Next Generation initiative” and the trio the “Philanthropic Initiatives”.

          I agree with you I find so odd how everyone is trying to make Kate this very committed person who has dedicated ”years” to mental health – did I missed something?

          1. Yes, Sophie took on a different part of the organization than Kate and Harry were patron of.

      3. The 100WHF wasn’t a long-term, official royal patronage for what I can see. W&K&H took it on for three years but what that really meant was, their charities would be the beneficiaries of the 100WHF fund raising. They weren’t doing anything for 100WHF, 100WHF was doing something for them. Sophie is actually going to be doing something for them and promoting their work and new initiatives.

    4. Part of Richard’s article on royals and their charities, ” the desire of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry to focus on hands-on intensive work with a small group of charities instead of more mundane ribbon-cutting” hahahaha, the Duke and Duchess “hands-on intensive work” hahahaha. Thanks for a good laugh Richard!

    5. Well, now! You’ve made the big time, and you didn’t even have to have any reporters over to meet your children! Very good job!

      1. Oh never mind, I found it :). Oh gosh, the comments are funny. “Kate does all she can, give her a break. She is a working mom”. “Her priority is her children, she will work more when they are in school”. Please! The last ‘argument’ makes me laugh. She didn’t work more before she had kids, so why would she work more when they are in school? There is no evidence she will. She will probably keep doing the bare minimum like she always does. I just can’t believe all the people that defend how little ‘work’ Kate does.

        1. I saw that tweet, too. I always think it’s odd the way people defend Kate by saying that her priority is her children. Doesn’t that imply that the royal mothers of young children who actually manage to work aren’t making the kids their priority? I’d have a really hard time thinking that Victoria isn’t putting Estelle first because she makes regular appearances.

        2. I haven’t read the comments on Palmer’s tweet. If those are the comments I’m guessing they didn’t actually read my article, because I wasn’t even negative about Kate. I said she visited her patronages *more* in the years she gave birth to her kids, and said she’s visited her patronages about as much as the other royals when we consider that she did less engagements overall. I did call out Kate for the “less patronages means more visits to each” thing which does not happen, but I called out William and Harry for that, too. There is no real need for people to “defend” Kate. There is nothing to defend her from.

        1. Remember KMR, RP directing people to your blog just heightens awareness for your on point critique. Many more now will have a place to read a balanced critique.

  13. What an enormous amount of work, KMR. It must have taken you so long and it is very informative for us — and apparently, others too. Richard Palmer tweeting about this! Wow!

    Having over 50 — even 100 patronages– to visit each year is a far cry from having fewer than twenty. So, even if Kate is visiting her patronages once or twice, it really is much different from working even harder on their behalf. But, then pregnancies and new babies at home seem to always get in the way of work. Who knows what she is doing when the cameras are not on, though. Maybe, she does more than we know.

    I agree that if she gives up the mental health for kids patronages, the disappointment will be felt by many. I hope she sticks to her interest in this cause and continues to bring awareness to such an important issue. More involvement and more of an understanding of the impact mental illness has on patients and their loved ones should be spoken about by Kate. She has the world’s attention and could shine a light on a subject that needs more understanding from the public and more effective research for help to patients, too.

    My sincere congrats to you, KMR, for all your hard work and for educating us all on such an important subject. I would like to see W and H do more, too. I agree with the above comment concerning Harry’s hard work on military/veteran issues. If those were all under patronages, his numbers would sky rocket!

    Thank you for your efforts. They are appreciated!

    1. The thing I find most odd about Kate’s interactions with her patronages is that she had more interactions with her patronages in the years she was pregnant/gave birth than she did in the other years. It seems so odd to me, but it may have something to do with the tours during those years.

      I know we say this a lot and it kind of has become a buzzphrase for us but Kate really does have a huge platform and she could really start a conversation if she actually discussed children’s mental health in an informative way.

      As I said above, if Harry’s private work with veterans were counted, then he would blow W&K out of the water. But since it’s private I can’t count it.

      1. I wonder if part of it is because when she is pregnant she just falls back on her habits and lets her advisers plan things instead of coming up with ideas on her own and running to them with a new cause of the week.

    2. How did the above post get attributed to W? I wrote it and signed in with my name and email address. Oh, well. Thank you again, KMR.

  14. I have one question for you KMR. Do you ever sleep? Wow! That was an amazing post, took a ton of work and put many things in perspective.

    The two things which stick out the most for me, are how low Prince Harry’s numbers are, due to the way things are counted. Who is behind that choice? Is there a brat in the palace trying to make someone look less in the public eye?

    The second thing is how hard Sophie works with little publicity. This is a shame. She probably spends more time, says a few words and does her homework in advance for an event. Her visits should count as 1.5 to 1.0 for a Kate visit. She said in an interview she has watched how HM interacts with people and has tried to follow her lead. I suspect she has also followed HM (and Prince Charles) by keeping her head down and just doing the work.

    Lastly, it may be different for all mothers, but my friends have all said life with children becomes increasingly busy as their children get older. My friends say the baby and toddler age is not the crazy busy time, but they are running constantly when their children are in the 6-12 age range. I don’t remember the age of E&S two children, but we hear excuses for Kate being a young mum quite frequently in the media.

    1. Well, I think that is referring to moms of kids in the 6-12 age range who have to pick them up and take them to friend’s houses, activities, sports, etc. Sophie truly does not have to do that, does she? I don’t think mothering ever stops, though. You’re always worried about your kids and want to keep the lines of communication open with them. Sophie deserves a great amount of respect for all the hard work she does. She is certainly someone HM can count on time and time again. She takes her role in the Royal Family seriously and deserves a great deal of respect for her efforts.

      P.S. Any mothers of babies and toddlers whom I have ever talked to don’t think it’s a piece of cake. It’s a lot of work. A lot.

      1. Sorry I wasn’t very clear. I sure never meant to imply the infant/toddler years are a piece of cake. I was simply repeating info from conversations I have had with many of my friends. I think parenting looks like a great deal of hard work. Of course, with royal mothers and fathers we really have no idea how much time they spend with their children.

        Let me try to clarify. I think the young mother issue comes up a good deal, when the number of appearances Kate makes each year is up for discussion. When I saw the number of appearances Sophie made last year, I thought it was important to point out her children may be at a busy stage, yet she puts in a good deal of appearances.

        We have no idea if Sophie drives her children to visit friends, riding lessons, school activities, girl guides/scouting or whatever they may be involved in, but I thought Sophie drove herself to many charity events. The main point I was trying to bring up, is friends say it is a misnomer to believe the 0-3 stage is the busiest. There is so much time spent guiding your children to adulthood to be responsible, self-sufficient, well rounded, socially involved, decent human beings.

        1. Let me tell you, I have two adult children and mothering never stops! I still wake up in the middle to the night wondering about how they are doing, the sometimes bone head decisions they make that I have to stay quiet about, the list goes on and on. At least when they were younger I could send them to their room, kind of hard to do when they’re 30 🙂

          1. Totally with you Lauri as I’ve said elsewhere in this post. I seem to be always worrying about one of my adult kids.

    2. If Harry really is having non-public meetings with his charities, then they could be counted in his numbers if KP wanted them to be (it’s his press office that would send that info out). Also, his volunteering with veterans and his work in Africa is done on his private time, so it wouldn’t be counted. If any other royal were volunteering in their private time, I wouldn’t expect that to be counted.

    3. The other royals worked more when their kids were young than KM works with children the same age. The young mum excuse is trotted out, but when you look at the others, it is clear that it is just an excuse.

  15. Very well put together.
    Quite impressed.
    I’ve often found it as belittling working mothers without help of staff to explain why Kate as a working mother cannot find time now to visit her patronages/work. Having this broken down into time and percentages and compared to others show how little is actually being done. Pretty shameful. Or at least, I would be ashamed if this were my work history.
    Formerly FLORC

    1. Very true. There are a ton of mothers who are working full time at stressful jobs who also take care of their children. And of course, not all of them have husbands. There are a lot of single mother who work full time. I actually think it would be even more insulting to single working mothers because they have to work in order to support their children, it’s not like they can just chose to stay home, and then to be told that they don’t love their kids as much as a woman who chooses to stay home is not only insulting but cruel.

  16. First of all AMAZING work KMR!

    Secondly, Kate’s ‘keenness’ to get involved is what really matters, not the numbers ;). We should count how ‘keen’ she is, lol.

    My problem with this, is at first glance the percentages make it seem like Kate is working as hard with her patronages as other Royals. But the percentages are not the whole fact. Kate only has a few patronages. Why is it so hard for her to visit them? Plus, the galas and parties are in the percentages, which up her numbers vs engagments per year. Galas are not the nitty gritty of actually visiting the charity. They are socializing with the rich, which we know she likes to do, in the name of charity. Not hard at all! That is why the percentages are misleading. The numbers for actually visiting the charities is quiet sad when she has only has less than a dozen over 5 years. She should honestly be visiting them twice a year. This just shows even more how lazy Kate really is. And actually William for that matter.

  17. Btw KMR, if Palmer did tweet about this article, be prepared to get some nasty comments from Kate fanatics. I hope you are ready to monitor the comments :).

    2. I actually haven’t gotten any, which is… odd. I mean it’s good because I don’t want to read negative comments about myself, but I find it odd that if people want to comment on my article they wouldn’t just comment here instead of commenting other places about it.

      1. To dispute empirical arguments, they would need data of the same calibre. Otherwise they will just come out as plain dumb. I don’t think any of the fans would be bothered to try to find data to support that you are wrong when there is none. Good job putting this together KMR! Thumbs up!

  18. The problem with “private meetings” is that nothing seems to ever result from their private meetings. No big event, fundraiser, new initiative, etc. Something that would suggest that the private meetings resulted in something. If the private meetings are just trips to meet the sick, etc. — that’s nice, but it does nothing to raise the charity’s profile or shore up the charity’s work.

    2. Good points! I never really believe the private meetings though. I feel like they say that to make Kate sound more involved then she is. Shoot they might count a meeting with Rebecca as a ‘private meeting’.

    3. Oh, I just remembered recent PR about Kate’s private visits! I was thinking more of Sophie putting private meetings with her charities on the CC. I wondered if she was invited to help plan directions for the charity and ways in which her profile could be harnessed to achieve more visibility and support?

      1. Oh, yes, I wasn’t clear that I wasn’t talking about Sophie but about William and Kate. I do believe that Sophie, with her past career in PR and business, would be a formidable person to have around when planning an event or long-term planning strategy, and that she is probably very useful in those meetings. But the PR with Kate is just bullshit. It’s a Diana-legacy thing, but the Princess of Wales made tons of public appearances to go along with the secret visits, and let’s face facts, didn’t have Sophie’s career experience to fall back on, so she did what she was good at.

        The problem is that Kate isn’t good at anything. And isn’t willing to try.

      1. And are then formally announced to the press. Good point — they aren’t “private” at all. The media is just kept from being there during it. When politician does something like that, they don’t call it “private” — they call it what it is — closed to the media.

  19. Thank you KMR I agree with everyone that you have an amazing work ethic and we appreciate it!

    EACH is local to her Norfolk home – she can drop G at nursery pop in to EACH and be home in time for giving Char her lunch. So why doesn’t she visit?

    London is a bit of a trek, even if she gets police to clear the way, so why not visit her most local patronage hey every week, for a short informal meeting.

    I don’t know if we have other Mums on here with young adult kids, but I find being a mum now just as tiring as when I had three boys under 4. It’s different problems, still often in the middle of the night, not physically tiring but often more emotionally tiring as they spread their wings and encounter the realities of life. Bottom line, being a Mum (or Mom) is a life time of responsibility, joy, stress and hard work.

  20. This is a grade A post, KMR! It’s excellent to have some hard data to review, and your analysis of it is great. I really appreciate this–it’s exactly why I read this blog.

    1. It’s really quality work. I’ve decamped from another blog for here and a few others.
      Nothing too spiteful here with what appears so far as balanced discussion.

      1. We have a resolution – no spite no personal attacks honest courteous differences of opinions and if KMR says behave we all sit up straighter improve our posture and toe the line. (You will come to understand our obsessions with posture courtesy of Lauri from CA)

      2. I love it when new people join the conversation. It is interesting how we all have a different take on a situation, sartorial opinions and a pretty strong ‘club’ rooting for Prince Harry.

        We did recently have a couple of people dive bomb KMR, probably with the intent to stir things up. Many of us have decided to scroll on by comments which look to be setting us all up for trouble. Just to give you a heads up.

        For many of us this is a lovely daily ritual of fun. Rather like a little coffee/tea break, but filled with all the hard work and information provided by our esteemed KMR.

      3. Please don’t read some of the comment sections on articles in December/early January. There were some big arguments in those. But things seem to be sorted now.

  21. Whilst I appreciate all the work that you put into this post, this is the sort of apples and oranges comparison that has people and Kate herself convinced that she’s either working enough and or is rushed off her feet.

    You can’t average out Kate’s numbers when others have 700+ patronages to get through vs her 11. Even if you are comparing behind the scenes meetings, you can’t compare a twice weekly hit rate of a Sophie vs a once every 2 months hit rate of Kate.

    I was going to use a sports analogy, but there isn’t a single one that levels the playing field with regards the disparity in the two things you are trying to level.

    Kate has told most people either directly or via her office that she works hard and is happy with the pace. We all know that’s not true. You can’t even compare her work rate to a teenager doing a Saturday job in terms of hours worked per month.

    The other royals can’t visit their charities/patronages more because they have to many of them. Yet even with the ridiculous number of charities/patronages they do have/support, they manage a hit rate that is more than Kate.

    If Philip, in good health, can get round half his patronages in a year, just once, that’s over 350 visits. Kate has exactly 11 charities/patronages. In order to work like Philip, she’s need to do 350/11 visits (approx 31 visits/meetings per charity per year ie a visit every 10days). Given that she only has 11, they might think she’d become an employee at her charities as she would be visiting that frequently to reach an equal number of visits as Philip in one year.

    And i’m pretty sure that her people do the same apples to oranges comparison false equivalence and tell her that since Philip (as an example) only manages one or two visit a year to his patronage/charities then her doing the same means she’s working as hard or as much as they are doing. And everybody conveniently doesn’t mention that Philip has a list of 766 to get through vs her 11 per year.

    I’ll finish my rant with a reminder of a charity worker at EACH who posted to one of the blogs about how they organised 10 events a year and invited Kate to attend and she turned down all except 2 invitations.

    Or the week she reneged on a long standing scout engagement because she’d been to see Ben and his charity earlier that week and pushed through despite rain washing out the engagement and everything being called off. She could push through for a rain soaked Ben Ainslie, but couldn’t and wouldn’t for the Scouts.

    1. The EACH account is very sobering, Herazeus, and a deeply distressing pattern of behaviour from Kate. Not that we were convinced otherwise…

      Yes, the percentages alone are misleading which is why other mechanisms need to come into play to try to make some sense of what ‘work’ actually entails.

      1. Wasn’t that in her Waiting-for-the-Ring Phase? Kate was asked to weddings of William’s friends and did not RSVP. She behaved similarly with charities, not responding to invitations/not showing up. She must have grown up in a complete bubble not to understand concepts like courtesy, work etc. Really strange.

        1. I believe it’s still continuing. As I recall there was a wedding not long ago that Kate was supposed to attend with William but sent her sister instead. I find it so hard to believe that Carole wouldn’t have drummed this into Kate at an early age, as this type of behavior is the height of poor manners.

    3. I don’t think the idea was to level the playing field at all. It was just to provide an accounting of patronages vs. other visits — a topic that often comes up. I think it’s eye-opening in terms of what it really means to have a royal be your patron. It also gives lie to the claims that Harry and William and Kate want to be smaller but more hands-on — they will never have as few patronages as they do right now, and do very little.

      1. I agree. I was going to write something earlier to this effect but got bogged down with other things. I like the idea of focusing in on a select number of patronages in theory, but you’ve really got to be willing to hit the ground running with them. Being a less involved patron is understandable when you’re dealing with the number of charities Philip has, for example, but, to reverse the claims made about Kate and William and the like, he’s never told anyone that he deliberately took on so many so he could keep his distance!

    4. Herazeus, wasn’t there another where she was too ill to attend, yet was able to fly to Scotland for a break with William and George? The Art Room if I remember correctly, in 2014.

      I tend to agree with your thinking, though. Frankly I think it’s pretty poor that with only 11 patronages she doesn’t have a 100% hit ratio. That’s less than one per month. The others cited tend to do more things in support of HM. Camilla with Charles, Phillip with HM. William and Kate, not so much.

      And I don’t know how you did it, KMR. You must have had a bout of insomnia, and this was the cure! 😉

      1. Kate cancelled several events in fall 2014 due to HG when pregnant with Charlotte, but then flew on vacation to Scotland.

    5. ITA, Herazeus. Statistically speaking (hard core) this is a non-starter, with all due respect to KMR and her work. There’s also an unintended bias, as if Kate’s ‘work’ is comparable to the rest. It is, indeed, like comparing apples and oranges.

      Perhaps, as you indicated, it’s better to compare the quality of her work to others instead.

      A thought provoking post, KMR!

      1. I agree that it’s hard to compare apples and oranges, but it’s also hard to make an objective claim about the quality of Kate’s work (I think it’s mediocre at best, but others would say she’s knocking it out of the park). The number of visits she makes, on the other hand, can be measured on an absolute scale.

      2. “There’s also an unintended bias, as if Kate’s ‘work’ is comparable to the rest.”

        Could you explain what you mean here, please?

    6. But I thought Kate was so highly intelligent. She must be able to understand the numbers and see past the false equivalence info provided by her people. (!?!)

      This is part of why I follow Kate. I cannot figure this woman out. Kate is a brain teaser in my book. I am waiting for a university psychology class based on her behavior.

    7. I saw some posts from an alleged hospice worker on DM, someone named SunflowerHeart. If true, it was a sobering account of how often they try to get KM to show up and how little attention she gives them.

      1. And hi Nota!
        i’ve decamped to here. Tired of the unbalanced, ill-moderated mess at the other place. You can find me here ;D
        <Formerly FLORC

        Give my best to the wiglet watchers!

        And yes, Sunflower’s accounts do seem in line with the details we can confirm as truths.

        1. Overit
          I can’t remember which DM article it was.
          This was in the comments section and they were fielding questions and making statements. It lasted several pages and many of us were fact checking. It all appeared above board. You could still find the commentor, but it might require lurking and word searches. And that’s all assuming DMOnline doesn’t disable omments or scrub them all/reset flag counts.

      1. Just being a bit sarcastic..and overwhelmed with the data you provided. When I saw the tables I got this memory flash from the Cambridge’s visit to Denmark when Kate was kind of ambushed by a reporter and asked several questions about the cause they were supporting together with CP Mary. In that interview she used word “statistics” which stack in my mind because after she finished the answer there was this split of second when she self evaluated her own performance and a little grin of satisfaction appeared on her face and for unexplained reasons I started to laugh uncontrollably. So I guess now when I see statistics, especially in relation to Kate it cracks me up. But that’s just a digression. You definitely did tremendous effort to put together those comparisons. Personally I went over them twice looking for the sources, because the first time I just scan the numbers and my brain came up with the conclusion that Jason send them to you because Kate’s numbers looked quite good with comparison to other royals. Thank you for putting some bones to your blog and making the effort to review the royals base on facts. Nevertheless the word Statistics has some special aura for me which even I don’t fully comprehend. Maybe if you see the footage on YouTube from the event I mentioned above you will grasp some understanding or maybe is just my perception ….or the rum in my tee?

          1. I watched it again and I think that she was taken by surprise. Base on William facial expression he was visibly uncomfortable with the attention given to Kate. Anyway what is going on with the answers given by CP of Denmark? Staying on positive side Kate did better than him, unless he is dealing with some challenges unknown to me. Dear KMR, regarding the table 2 from the top, how come the #of public visits with patronage’s is higher than # of patronage’s visit?

          2. In table 2 (which I should have labeled, my bad), do you mean the # of public visits is higher than the # of interactions with patronages or # of patronages visited? Because the # of public visits is not higher than the # of interactions with patronages, but it is higher than the # of patronages visited because Kate publicly visited her patronages more than once in the given year.

          3. Yikes, after that little blip, she should have been focused on being very aware of the reason for her appearances and always prepared for a sound bite. I was turning pink for her, and watching William blinking furiously…oh my.

        2. I didn’t see the little grin of satisfaction after she finished. But wow was she not prepared to answer those questions.

          I looked at the online court circular to get the numbers.

      2. Thank you for response KMR, you cleared my confusion about # of public visits to patronage’s and # of patronage’s visited…my ups. Must be my ESL. Greetings to everybody.

  23. Sophie took Lady Louise to Buckingham Palace when Louise was around 3 years old to watch HM go and give a speech in the House of Lords. I remember seeing the photos. The parents have kept James away from the cameras though I don’t know why. The royals tend to keep the children away if they are ashamed of them or too young. Kate doesn’t seem to have the direction. It is as if she attends a charity event and then changes her mind. Wasn’t Kate meant to have attended somewhere before the wedding in secret? do they count as visiting patronages please?

    1. I only counted patronage visits as visits to organizations *after* she officially became patron of them. For example, Kate visited the Natural History Museum in 2012 before she became patron of the museum in 2013, so I did not count that.

      1. I see, Thank you KMR. I was just unsure why Kate wouldn’t want the publicity. However if Kate is not officially a patron then that is understandable. I think William spontaneously dropping in to the school hall during work showed that William was keen to be one of the guys. I guess Patronages raise their profile during a royal visit. More people are then likely to sit up and take notice. Which is why visiting them is important.

  25. Great post KMR. When I first read it I thought… It’s going to be like herding cats to get the statistics in a format so you can compare each royal.
    I do think that the private meetings could be taken into account too – Sophie obviously attends these and the preparation shows, just as Kate’s lack of preparation shows too.
    I am starting to think that maybe Kate thinks it is not necessary to attend the planning meetings or read the briefing notes, that she just has to turn up? Compare Kate with the work the other royal spouses are doing and Kate is lacking in every way (IMO).
    BTW, well done on having this post noticed by Richard Palmer. Seems to me he must be a regular reader?
    (waves “hello” to Richard)

    1. The thing about private visits is that they are private, they are not made public, so I have no idea who is attending what, when, and how much. The meetings Sophie attended which showed up in the court circular are private in terms of non-press but they are not private in terms of on their private time and not counting as work.

  26. Very interesting and informative. The way you compared all the numbers was clearly well thought out. Thank you so much for putting this together KMR! It must have been a lot of work. It’s a shame that we don’t see much interaction between royals and their patronages (save Sophie!). I hope that in the future, Kate will follow Sophie’s example. She seems truly engaged with her causes.

  28. Excellent piece, well done!

    What always interests me is just how much of an impact royal visits actually have on charities, in terms of sustainable and meaningful support? Esp someone like Kate where the media afterwards focuses more on her clothes than the charity. I bet more people can name the dresses Kate wore than the charities she attended.

    Do more people volunteer to help the charities that Kate visits? If so, how long do they stay involved for?

    Has anyone ever done sums on how much money is spent by fanatics on buying Kate’s high street clothes compared with how much extra money is donated to the charity as a result of her appearance? Eg, say X shop sold out of the dress Kate wore. If X Shop has outlets in 25 towns and each one held 5 copies of the dress @ a certain price, then so many dollars were spent that could otherwise have been donated to the charity. Compare that amount with donations actually received by the charity.

    Maybe I’m cynical but I always wonder whether charities get real and tangible benefits from these visits.

      1. I agree that the clothing brands Kate wears get more attention than the charities she visits. I’ve noticed that the Kate fan sites tend to discuss her clothes more than the charities and often have specific ads for the brands Kate wears and they do giveaways for those brands as well. They don’t do those kinds of partnerships with the charities Kate works with. Granted, I don’t either, but then again I don’t try and sell you the brands Kate wears either.

        On a similar note, I just finished writing an article about Camilla’s visit to SafeLives yesterday and I realized when I was rereading it that I didn’t talk at all about her clothes because I had too many other things to write about. If there is enough information about something the royal said or did, the charity, and/or the people the royal met to fill an article then the clothes the royal wears gets either left out or stuck in as an after thought.

          1. The original DM article on the visit was written by not-Rebecca English and was all about the wind and Camilla’s clothes. But then the updated article by RE had a lot of good information and no mention of clothes.

        2. Hey, no matter what we have to discuss the fashion, that’s the fun bit! The rest of our dialogue never seems to suffer for it.

    2. I’ve wondered how much of an impact a royal visit has on a given organization, but there is no way to quantify that. The only way to know would be to have access to the organizations figures and they don’t release that information. And in terms of the clothing sales figures, again, only the brand would have access to that information and unless they speak publicly about it there is no way to know.

    3. If Kate can’t be bothered to say anything about her charities then what is the press supposed to write about? I only know what I know about her charities because the bloggers take the time to write about them, not because of anything Kate said about them. Hell, I know more about Pippa’s charities than I do about Kate’s. But it’s great to see the fashion designers benefit from Kate’s charity “work”.

  29. I think compared to many other monarchies the British royals are very actively involved in their charities, although I could be wrong.

  30. OMG! Richard Palmer tweeted! Hehe you’re going places. Anyway this is an incredible post and a better assessment of Kate’s work ethic than just comparing her with everybody. Overall though I do think that she needs to put in more effort. I’m still not believing all these secret charity visits and what not. It just doesn’t seem credible. Also, the PR surrounding her, especially in the beginning, points out that she will focus on these few patronages that’s she selected just about five from the start and added just a few more afterwards. So if she’s not dedicating her time for them, what exactly does she do? Where is she most of the time? If she makes secret visits, why are there no sightings, informal photos, etc? Has someone from any of her patronages accidentally let it slip that hey, the other day she was just here participating in activity or something like that?

  31. They are allegedly on holiday again. EAAA must love having normalbill on staff.

    Emily Andrews
    Mike & Carole Middleton are holidaying in Mustique (first spotted by @HRHDuchesskate) I’ve been told but no sign (yet…) of the cambridges

    1. After all the rumors about the Middletons not being a couple since Charlotte’s birth, I’m sure Carole’s happy that people are tweeting about them vacationing together.

    1. Yeah… I don’t really want to read what they’re saying about the article/me. I’ve read too many accounts from celebs who say they read what people said about them and got upset/depressed and have learned not to google themselves to read the comments about the article/me. I still haven’t read the comments on Palmer’s tweet and I have 26 notifications on Twitter that I haven’t looked at.

      1. Don’t worry, Heavy are the Crowns is loving this article. She doesn’t like Kate much and so she’s having a blast.

  33. Amazing and very scientific post, KMR! Sadly I’m certain you worked harder to put this one post together than Kate worked in all of 2015. 🙂

  35. Wow, you caught the attention of Richard Palmer and the RD’rs. I suspect that , this post took more time and effort than Kate has ever put into anything aside from the obvious. I’m on a fun medication right now so haven’t been able to read all the comments but dropped by to say ***brilliant***. Happy to see you and some others out there ‘keen’ to tell it like it is and put forth the goods!!

  36. If you want a good look at what members of all the Royal families in Britain and Europe do, check out the website mynewroyals. It covers all public events of all the Royal families.

  37. KMR, I admire your hard work. I also can understand your not wanting to actually read the buzz that has been created concerning your hard work. Just allow your faithful followers to send you much love and thanks for all you do. You are always fair, always thorough and truly original. I think it is wonderful that you are gaining the attention you are. Just soak up our devotion, if you don’t want to read anything else.

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