So farewell then Environmental Protection UK (EPUK) . The UK’s oldest environmental NGO (Non Governmental Organisation), known for most of its life as the National Society for Clean Air, last week announced that it was shutting up shop as a funded and staffed organisation. If it continues it will do so on a purely voluntary basis. EPUK is not the first NGO that's run into problems in the current harsh financial climate, and it won't be the last. Running an NGO has always been something of a wing and a prayer activity, and establishing cash reserves when your focus is delivering on your charitable objectives is extremely difficult. People donating money want it to be spent on delivery, not stashed away in a bank account. Consequently many NGOs run with reserves that cover only a few months of operation and when individual giving and Government grants dry up (as they have done) they can quickly get into trouble. Larger NGOs have been cutting back, and many smaller ones are going...
Squawking, flapping and pecking around environmental policy since 2011.