Generation Rent Misses Crowdfunding Target – What Now?

Tenant group Generation Rent insists that it has raised enough money through crowdfunding for its survival, despite hitting just a quarter of its target.

Its website previously stated that if the group did not meet it’s £60,000 target, staff must be laid off, meaning that the organisation could only have existed with the help of volunteers.

However, despite under £18,000 being raised in donations, Generation Rent claims it will operate as a team of two – it’s director Betsy Dillner and communications manager Dan Wilson Craw – until at least next spring, when it hopes to have found further funding.

Generation Rent Misses Crowdfunding Target – What Now?

Generation Rent was offered a grant of £45,500 from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which will be spent on fighting for rent controls in London.

After a year-and-a-half of its existence, Generation Rent has successfully pushed the Government to protect private tenants from revenge evictions, cut landlord tax breaks and regulate letting agents.

It began its crowdfunding mission after the Nationwide Foundation pulled its funding of the group.

The Generation Rent website said: “We have three things to do by next spring: push the Government into protecting tenants from criminal landlords, win a commitment from the next Mayor of London to bring down rents in the city, and secure longer term grant funding.

“We are already working on all three but this money is needed to keep the team in place and avoid losing any momentum.

“If we only hit our minimum we will have to lay off the team but the campaign can still exist as a volunteer-run organisation.”¹

Furthermore, a spokesperson said in July that if Generation Rent did not raise enough money by the 31^st August deadline, “there is a real danger that the campaign will simply vanish, and with it the national voice of private renters in the media and political debate.”

However, yesterday the group claimed it has raised enough money to “keep campaigning for private renters across the UK.”¹

Dillner comments: “A month ago, our future looked very bleak, with no guarantee that we would be able to survive past September.

“The team here has thrown everything we had at fundraising and we have been humbled by the response. It is an incredible feeling to see the number of people and organisations with the confidence in us to donate to keep us in existence.

“We now have a big task to keep representing the growing private renter population and we will continue to rely on people power for our success.”¹ 

¹ http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/generation-rent-defiant-despite-missing-crowdfunding-target/