Meghan Markle’s attempt to interfere in U.S. public policy regarding paid family leave, using her title the Duchess of Sussex, failed miserably. As it turns out, a foreign royal title holds little sway in the real world of U.S. politics. But Meghan isn’t giving up, and recently gave employees of an organization advocating for paid family leave each a paltry $25 gift card to Starbucks for their hard work.

It is literally the least she could do.

PF+US, or Paid Leave U.S., seems to have only 21 fulltime employees, if the information on their website is accurate. That means Meghan Markle and Archewell spent, get ready for it, $525. 

If she included members of the board in this microscopic gesture, then the total would jump to $700, and if there were more employees than the ones listed on the website, the amount jumps to $1,250. 

How generous, no?

The multimillionaire former royal, who has scratched together several deals worth supposedly over $100 million gave away a measly $1,250 of her small fortune, at the most.

But of course, she made this organization highlight how supposedly “great” she is for buying the nonprofit workers at least three cups of Starbucks coffee.

Neil Sroka, Communications director of PL+US, wrote on Twitter, “The Duchess of Sussex (aka #MeghanMarkle) bought everyone @PaidLeaveUS a few cups of coffee while we’re working overtime to #SavePaidLeave.”

Needless to say, some of the users had a field day with the Duchess’ very small gesture.

Cami Sotto said, “Yeah, I’m more impressed with Keanu (heart eye emoji).” The post also included a news article talking about how the actor gave the stunt team for ‘John Wick’ personalized Rolex watches to the tune of $7,000 each.

Claudia Lawrence tweeted, “$25 at Starbucks? That should get you a drip coffee and a stale bagel (smiley face emoji).

AZMimsy wrote, “Lol. Are you serious! Meg did NOT pay for that coffee. That came out of donations from Archewell. Anyone who donated to Archewell, this is where your money went.”

In response to the criticism leveled against Meghan, Sroka responded, “This tweet has received a stunning amount of coverage, so I’ll clarify: The Duchess/Archewell gave EACH of our staffers $25 for (coffee emoji). Maybe that doesn’t mean much to some, but for our team fighting to #SavePaidLeave it was a delightful surprise. Thank you #MeghanMarkle.”

With all due respect to Sroka and PL+US, everyone understood what she did. What people have an issue with the pathetic amount given and why this empty “gesture” was publicized at all. 

Meghan Markle wants the public adulation of giving away $525, when she lives in a $14 million mansion. 

Celebrities give that amount and more in restaurant tips. Tom Selleck gave a $2,020 tip for a single meal at the New York City restaurant Elios after his costar Donnie Wahlberg also gave a $2,020 tip at a different restaurant in Plymouth Massachusetts. A country music star, who remained anonymous, gave a $1,000 tip to a Wafflehouse waitress.

Have Harry and Meghan been exceptionally generous in their tipping? The answer is probably no.

Most of the time the celebrities do this seemingly without expecting publicity. They just want to share their good fortune with others, and that’s what we should do. There are probably thousands of other great tipping experiences that don’t get any attention or publicity, but Meghan Markle wants public adulation over her miniscule donation.

My former nonprofit company with over 500 employees gave each person a $25 gift card for a local supermarket during Thanksgiving. It was nice, but nothing to write home about. No one was screaming from the rooftops about how exciting it was from the rooftops.

In comparison, the Spanx founder gave each of her 500 employees two first class tickets to anywhere in the world and $10,000 to spend after her company sold. Her employees were ecstatic. Though she is a billionaire, she still spent an impressive $10,000,000 on her employees. 

That’s impressive.

Meghan Markle is supposedly worth an impressive $50-60 million, and she expects the public to be impressed with $525 her charity gave to another organization. Other normal middleclass families also give about the same amount, and don’t expect anything in return and don’t publicize it on Twitter (for the most part).

There’s nothing wrong with being charitable, but it’s that every charitable effort must be followed by headlines and social media posts praising Meghan’s generosity, it always ends up feeling like a cheap publicity stunt for social media attention.