Project On Government Oversight

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes waste, corruption, and abuse of power in the federal government. Founded in 1981 in partnership with whistleblowers, the organisation works through investigative journalism and advocacy for government accountability and transparency. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and its focus is the United States federal government. With more than 50 employees and an annual budget exceeding $7m, POGO has operated for more than four decades.

Its work falls into two main strands. POGO Investigates is a small nonprofit newsroom producing nonpartisan investigative reporting on systemic corruption and abuse of power, with a track record of high-quality journalism spanning more than forty years. Alongside it, POGO champions policy reforms intended to make the federal government more effective, ethical, and accountable while safeguarding constitutional principles.

Subject areas covered by the organisation include investigative journalism, government oversight and accountability research, whistleblower protection advocacy, policy research and reform, national security law analysis, and federal spending transparency. Verticals of particular focus are national security and defence programmes, government ethics, judicial and congressional oversight, surveillance policy, and federal budget transparency.

POGO describes itself as mission-driven, nonpartisan, and independent, with a small, agile newsroom structure and a commitment to the public interest.