The reserve tank of trust in our country continues to run low – in our institutions, our leaders, and the media. The civic sector took pride in maintaining public confidence, until a 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed that for the first time, the American public’s faith in civil society had dropped by nine points below the halfway mark.
So, how we can make our country better and how can the nonprofit sector gain more of the public’s trust?
25 of our nation’s leading thinkers and practitioners have big, audacious answers to that question.
We’re excited to publish a new eBook called Civil Society for the 21st Century. In collaboration with the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Independent Sector invited a diverse group of thought leaders to share their perspectives about building trust in an evolving world.
Their ideas are as diverse as the authors themselves. Each article contemplates the growing polarization and cynicism gripping the country, and offers thoughtful (and often diverging) advice on how to strengthen our nation and reverse the sector’s downward trend in public trust.
To frame the project, IS President and CEO Dan Cardinali opens the book by expressing his belief that the answer to renewing trust in civil society can be found in emphasizing the values that bind us together and adopting newer values of shared power and racial equity.
While their views and proffered solutions may be different, one thing is consistent: each author projects deep confidence in our sector’s ability to rise to the challenges that confront our fragmented nation and restore the trust that allows civil society to flourish. Download the eBook to find out how!
