How Organizations Build Trust

(Illustration by iStock/spawns)

Trust for institutions across society is declining. This is not a theory but a fact, affirmed by leading experts like the Edelman Trust Barometer, Gallup, and General Social Survey by NORC at the University of Chicago.

This growing trust deficit is a serious problem. It erodes a high-functioning pluralistic democracy, compromises public health, and makes it impossible to solve collective problems like climate change. Trust in institutions is necessary to create and improve the social contracts that govern democracy and allow communities and the nation to strike sustainable civic bargains. Trust doesn’t just happen. It is earned person by person, moving through large segments of society.

American civil society institutions have an important role to play. From nonprofits advancing dignity and rights, to academia creating space to explore the issues of the day, to community organizations building confidence in our elections—each contributes to the expansion or decline of social trust. Trust-building is actions aligned to values—it’s not just communicating about what matters, but doing it.

For leaders of civil society organizations, earning, rebuilding, and maintaining trust is a complicated but doable and essential undertaking to achieve their mission. They need to understand the context in which they are building trust across diverse groups of people, from staff to partners to the people they serve to society at large.

The job is made harder by bad actors in society who deliberately undermine trust. Those who are pitting communities against each other and sowing misinformation are harnessing faster and fancier tools to do their worst. For civil society leaders to reverse the growing trust deficit and use social trust to bridge rather than divide society, leaders need to be equally well equipped.

With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (the views in this article do not necessarily represent those of the foundation), a team of us at Spitfire Strategies took a close look at the social science research from the last 20 years about earning and rebuilding trust, interviewed and heard from more than 25 leaders on their trust-building work, and explored case studies to see trust-building and rebuilding in action. Based on what we learned, we created a guide for civil society leaders to deliberately and consistently earn high trust—as well as how to repair trust once it is breached.

Here are five steps for leaders to consider:

First, understand what social trust is: Social trust is a broad belief in the honesty, integrity, and reliability of others—a justified faith in people. Importantly, trust is ultimately a leap of faith. That means it isn’t entirely rational or logical. It often requires trusting that people, including strangers, will act benevolently and with integrity. People want to believe that human rights groups will protect their individual rights if they come under attack, that environmental groups are holding polluters accountable, and that public health organizations are safeguarding people’s health and not in the pockets of big Pharma.

Second, define what “strong trust” means for your organization and how it helps achieve the mission. Make sure all who work for the organization from staff to board know what this is and their role in contributing to it. For example, the BMe Community “teaches institutions and individuals to define Black people and all people by their aspirations and contributions rather than by degradations and disparities.” For BMe to have strong trust means others believe that they are going to define all people by their attributions and contributions every time. Their staff, board, and network need to deliver on this.

Third, get clear about the different groups of people you want to build trusting relationships with. Leaders likely want to be trusted individually and as an organization by staff and board, by partners, and by the communities throughout society they work with. Juntos Avanzamos is a network of credit unions dedicated to serving Latino, Spanish-speaking, and immigrant communities. Regardless of citizenship status, Juntos Avanzamos credit unions make banking accessible. They tailor services to their clients and remove common roadblocks to banking by accepting alternative forms of identification, such as passports, when many other banks accept only US-issued identification. To be successful at advancing their mission, they need to have high trust of their employees, the communities where their financial institutions operate in, the banks they want as part of their network, the larger banking sector, and the larger immigrant consumer sector.

Fourth, get a sense from both internal and external communities about how trustworthy they find your organization, and what fractures need repair to increase trust. The Partnership for Public Service offers a model for assessing trust: a dashboard that tracks trust in government. It also tracks which agencies are doing well, like the National Park Service, which has an 84% favorability rating, and which are not, like US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is at 46%. It asks questions related to trust, which many people respond to by saying the government is wasteful, corrupt, incompetent, doesn’t listen to the public, and doesn’t treat people fairly. While this may be hard for leaders to hear, this dashboard provides concrete ideas to improve social trust.

Leaders need to take the pulse on trust on a regular basis. Start with what you have going for you. Some signs of high trust research suggests to look for include: People are not hunkered down in survival mode. They are stepping out of their bubbles, seeking out others, being open to new ideas and expanding who they trust. Those engaging with you do so with responsiveness and vulnerability. People engaging with your organization feel welcome, have agency, and feel they can participate in meaningful ways. People are optimistic within your organization and the world. There is a strong sense, internally and externally, that your organization places public interest over self-interest. When someone walks into the health clinic, they are first asked how they are feeling and what brings them in rather than asked to pre-pay for services.

Leaders also need to understand where they experience lack of trust, mistrust, and distrust. All of these make it hard to do work.

• Lack of trust occurs because people don’t know a lot about an organization or an issue. It isn’t a negative judgment but rather a human trait to anticipate. If an organization gets a new CEO, they may experience this.
• Mistrust reflects doubt. People are skeptical and have a lot of questions. Whole categories of organizations or fields may experience this mistrust. Artificial Intelligence falls into this category. People don’t fully understand it. Some people say it represents the end of the world; others say it will help us create a better one. Some people don’t trust those who’ve created it or how they’re deploying it. People feeling mistrust are generally open to new information, while those who distrust are often resistant to new information.
• Distrust is more damning. It is a settled belief that an organization or category of organizations, like science organizations, is not trustworthy.

Research suggests social distrust is problematic because it creates negative feelings—hard ones, such as resentment, indifference, disappointment, and anger. This takes its toll on society and makes it much more difficult for organizations to achieve their objectives. Distrust can manifest into social traps where people won’t do what they know is in their own and society’s best interest. Locally, people may know they all need to conserve water but see their neighbors watering their lawns and decide they too will take more water. Nationally, people may know that public transit solves congestion and mitigates climate-change consequences, but they don’t believe others will ride the bus or train so they stay in their own cars. Internationally, people know developed countries contribute more to greenhouse gasses, but rather than pushing for each country to do everything they can, they rationalize inaction by pointing out that other countries aren’t doing their part.

Keep in mind that social trust is fluid, based on history and current context. According to research, broken trust leaves scars in the collective memory. For any groups facing discrimination, from LGBTQ+ people to Black people to Indigenous people to women, trust requires greater risk and vulnerability. Health systems have caused communities very real harm in the past that led to medical distrust, and more recently, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Distrust may be a protective tool for people who have had to shield themselves from harmful institutions their whole lives. Don’t treat distrust as a bad behavior that needs to be corrected. Treat it as a result of people’s experiences and work to become more trustworthy by addressing root causes and taking care to not perpetuate harm.

Fifth, embrace best practices to earn greater trust. Once leaders know what trust they want to cultivate and with whom, as well as their current state of trust, they can decide where there are opportunities to earn higher trust. From all the research and experts’ insights, our guide identifies 10 recommendations broken into three categories:

• Walk your talk. This addresses behaving with integrity, knowing and following moral norms and elevating moral norms to show they are alive and well.
• Put your best foot forward. These are practices and behaviors that will increase trust, like proving competency, showing you trust the people you serve, and welcoming participation.
• Don’t step in it. These are behaviors and practices to avoid because they erode trust, like masking misalignment rather than taking concrete actions to fix.

Here are some recommendations from each category to consider.

To walk your talk, organizations need to prioritize knowing, following, and modeling moral norms. The difference between moral norms and values is that moral norms are expectations for how people will behave and values are the underlying beliefs that result in those rules. Showing these moral norms in action requires organizations to practice moral elevation, which taps into the emotional element of social trust. When people see others living their moral norms, which is another way of saying how they expect them to behave, they feel more confidence in others, which increases collaboration and prosocial behaviors that benefit society as a whole.

Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., the longtime former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and former director of the Human Genome Project, offers a good example of moral elevation. Following the release of a National Academies report on the harassment of women in science, Collins demonstrated one of the immediate and actionable ways he and others in prominent leadership positions could help: Get rid of “manels.” The prevalence of male-only panels is so common that there are multiple nicknames for it, from “manferences” to “himposiums” to “manels.” In a public announcement, Collins pledged to no longer speak on panels at scientific meetings or conferences that did not show a commitment to include scientists of all backgrounds and challenged other scientific leaders to do the same. Due to his high profile, Collins’ pronouncement garnered national attention and Collins has said he believes his announcement caused more people to reconsider who they invite to appear on speaking panels. 

To put your best foot forward, one recommendation is to signal that you trust your communities to increase the chance they will trust you. Trust requires and engenders reciprocity. If I trust you, you are more likely to trust me and vice versa. When your child walks into school, do they go through metal detectors? When you need help, do you have to “prove” you need help by filling out duplicative forms? There are a lot of rules, regulations, and processes based on an assumption that people are going to cheat or misuse resources or benefits—that they shouldn’t or can't be trusted. Such suspicion or expectation of mistrust can fester and become an open or even a permanent wound for your organization.

A good example is the Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT), which builds mutually trusting relationships with its program participants. MMT provides Black mothers experiencing financial insecurity in Jackson, Mississippi with support services and $1,000 per month for one year—and the mothers decide how to use the money because they know best what their families need. MMT trusts the mothers. In return the mothers note that they consistently feel respect from staff. This has resulted in positive relationships and outcomes. According to their 2022-23 evaluation report, one participant said, “You get constant encouragement, help with resources, a shoulder to lean on, and financial help all in one. This is a program of pure love.”

To not step in it, own up to mistakes, don’t spin them. There’s a familiar saying, “You can’t put lipstick on a pig.” Perhaps your organization finds itself in misalignment between the values you’ve stated and your actions. For example, you’ve said there won’t be layoffs around a budget shortfall and then find yourself having to walk back what you said. If your organization fails to explicitly acknowledge that misalignment, you will only further erode trust with critical constituencies. Organizations are in the hot seat when they decide to make changes in big organizational priorities or compromise on policy positions, or even choose not to take a position on an issue. Take the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). In 2007, despite its inclusive mission and supportive remarks from the organization’s president at the time, HRC failed to use its lobbying power to support transgender rights in employment non-discrimination legislation. When Chad Griffith became president in 2012, he made a formal apology on behalf of the organization to the transgender community. He then shared a plan to push for inclusive and comprehensive legislation—and asked to be held accountable. Today, HRC continues to uphold its commitment to center transgender issues.

If your action or decision turns out to be a mistake, own it. People see what’s happening , even if they don’t say it. It may be hard in those moments to not get defensive or shift the focus from impact to intentions. But it is in these moments when there is real opportunity to build trust.

There is no better time to engage in trust-building than right now. Ask yourself and your team: Is what we are doing today, this week, this year increasing trust or eroding it? You have a unique position and can use your power to make trust a strength for your organization to create better outcomes for our society. Committing to concrete behaviors and practices that earn trust, and being accountable for the results, will help reverse the trust deficit and elevate social trust. Imagine what’s possible in that world.

Replenishing Trust: Civil Society’s Guide to Reversing the Trust Deficit is written by Kristen Grimm, Claire de Leon, Michael Crawford and Diana Chun of Spitfire Strategies and can be downloaded at spitfirestrategies.com/trust.

Read more stories by Kristen Grimm, Claire de Leon, Michael Crawford & Diana Chun.