The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry founded the Forum in 2006 as a way to bring their individual charitable interests together and to explore how they could best lend their support to them all in an effective and efficient way.
The Forum has evolved over the years, expanding as The Princes' charitable activities grew. Today, there are over 30 organisations involved in the group including The Duchess of Cambridge’s charities.
All the charities work in sectors that support Their Royal Highnesses key charitable areas of focus, including: supporting members of the armed forces and their families, helping children and young people, and promoting conservation and sustainable development.
The group is as diverse as it is unique but all members share common aims and values. The primary purpose of the Charities Forum is to generate ideas and influence in the charitable sector by combining the profile of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry with the diversity and experience of the Forum members.
The Charities Forum meets biannually, with each organisation taking it in turns to host the group. The meetings not only provide an opportunity for the Charities to update Their Royal Highnesses on their recent activities and projects, but they also provide a platform for collaborative activity between the organisations.
Opportunities to support each other are explored at meetings, relationships are developed and bilateral work is initiated, often between charities and organisations that would not ordinarily have been linked through the course of their own work.
Most recently The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry joined children from over 30 organisations involved in The Charities Forum at a creative industries-themed Charities Forum event, hosted by BAFTA and Aardman.
Mountain Rescue England and Wales, of which The Duke of Cambridge is Patron, has hosted outdoor activity days for families and young people from the Child Bereavement Charity and Centrepoint (two of The Duke’s other charities) and Prince Harry’s charity WellChild. The children learnt how to abseil and how Mountain Rescue teams conduct rescues and evacuations. They have proved to be very enjoyable for all the children and families involved, and was made possible thanks to the links the organisations were able to make through the Charities Forum.
In 2013, Warner Brothers hosted the Charities Forum event at the Harry Potter Studios, which allowed young people associated with each of the member organisations to spend the morning on a special tour of the studio.
Members of the Charities Forum are also allocated spaces to take part in the London Marathon each year. In 2015, Prince Harry joined a training session for runners at Twickenham, hosted by The Rugby Injured Players Foundation.
