Pressure group Generation Rent – a thorn in the side of many property professionals in recent years – has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £60,000 to keep the organisation going.

The crowdfunding push follows an unexpected funding cut, reportedly from one of its main donors, the Nationwide Foundation, set up by the Nationwide mortgage firm.

Generation Rent has been funded since January 2014 and launched two months later. 

Since then it has pushed renters’ rights and rent control up the political agenda and campaigned for a ban on revenge evictions, letting agent regulation and cuts to landlord tax breaks.

Its controversial and outspoken former leader, Alex Hilton, quit the company a week after the general election.

The group says its work now is “far from over”. The funding was originally due to run out in spring 2016 and the campaign is already applying for grant funding elsewhere.

Generation Rent is trying to raise £60,000 by August 31; if it fails to do so it will have to lay off all staff and will cease to function. 

The money, if raised, will enable Generation Rent to continue its work putting pressure on Parliament, London Mayoral candidates and local government to improve conditions for renters, while securing grant funding to keep it running beyond next spring.

Betsy Dillner, director of Generation Rent, says: “This cut has come as a shock and our young campaign is now facing oblivion. Without us, private renters will no longer have a national voice in the media and political debate, and their prospect of a rented sector that works for them will ebb away. The housing crisis is not going away anytime soon, but with the generosity of the public, neither will Generation Rent.”