I only remember that after she ceased to appear as "The Princess of Wales" in public, she send most of her charities down the drain. Okay, then I thought that's understandible because her position had changed but in the meantime I heard so many things about how the RF still supported her or payed for people to support her and would have done so in the future,IMHO if she had continued, so I haven't bought that argument for a long time. Or just look at Countess Alexandra of the Danish Royal family - she still get support for her charities and the people there still want her, even though she left the family to marry again. There is even talk of naming her the Secretary Gerneal of the Danish Red Cross, so I don't think her move away from the prince matters that much when it comes to support for charities.
Diana got a divorce settlement and not a stipend from the government as Alexandra is doing. I don't think there was the expectation that she would keep up her charities when she stopped being Princess of Wales.
Actually initially I thought dropping the charities was a good idea. I often thought that Diana focused so much on helping strangers because she didn't know how to have healthy relationships with the people closest to her. It sounds generous but I think her time would have better been spent mending the relationships closest to her - like the Spencers, the Windsors, her children, trusted friends.
It would have been nice if Diana had taken the lead of the late, great Audrey Hepburn who had done so much for UNICEF. Audrey, like Diana, had been a face for UNICEF, she didn't get down in the trenches but she provided an awareness to a cause that previously had gone unnoticed. Audrey also had a failed marriage - in fact she had two failed marriages, the first marriage failed due to several miscarriages she had and the second marriage due to her second husbands continuous unfaithfulness towards her with several women. But she persevered; and with dignity and decorum, got herself out of that disastrous second marriage while seeking to secure her children against kidnapping threats at the time. Finally she found a man who was her soulmate and was as supportive of her and her children as she was to him.
What does this have to do with Diana, you might ask? Well Audrey put her priorities on fixing her own life first before she put much effort into helping others. As a result, she's left a wonderful legacy with her widower and two sons who have continued her legacy with UNICEF. Their efforts are some of the most respected today. So all of the work that she started with UNICEF is still going strong with her children with whom she shared a close and healthy bond.
Diana on the other hand has no one who was close to her to carry on her legacy. Her brother was the closest one to her in childhood but by the time of her death they were no longer speaking and that has reflected in the terrible mismanagement of her charities. Her sons William and Harry have their own problems as you can see from their threads here. William is the heir to the throne (or heir to the heir) so that must be his first priority, he doesn't have the liberty of picking up any charitable cause he wants. Harry has more freedom but he seems to flit from one thing to another with no real purpose. Has anyone heard of Lesotho since he said he was going to team up with the prince there?
However, the disagreements and mismanagement of Diana's charities is a direct result of the terrible state of Diana's personal relationships and this is where she differs from Audrey Hepburn. Her brother has two many conflicting emotions towards his ex-sister to do a good job with her charities (I think he wanted to blacken the eye of the Royal Family rather than truly help people)
I also think William and Harry are hampered with their conflicting relationship with Diana. Even Diana's friends said that she was jealous if anyone tried to befriend her sons and that she did use her sons in ammunition against Charles. One of the results was that she carried out a vendetta against Tiggy Legge-Bourke the boys nanny, who the boys were very close to and who comforted them during the worst times of the War of the Waleses. She also asked William for advice that was well beyond his years to give. These elements of Diana's real relationships to her sons and her family have an impact on how well they carry out Diana's legacy. Diana's sons will forever be labelled the children of a marriage where their father so cruelly treated their mother no matter what they try to do to up the profile of her charities. So they have to balance the inevitable backlash against their father and the Royal Family if they want to honor their mother's charities. Audrey Hepburn's sons had no such problems. Audrey's second husband cheated on her non-stop but she hasn't gone down in history as the woman that that man so cruelly treated so her sons can honor her legacy without wondering what it will do to their relationship with their father.
So I think that if there is a lesson to be learned from these two women's lives, its that charity truly does begin in the home and if one wants to set a legacy that lasts, its best to make sure the closest relationships are healthy and strong so that the people after your death protect your legacy and life's work. Right now there is no one who is protecting Diana's life work with her charities and I think it is the fallout from her personal relationships.
