Public trust is the currency of the nonprofit sector.
Without the public’s trust, everything we do to advance our collective missions becomes harder, if not impossible.
The public’s belief that nonprofits will “do the right thing” is one of the central reasons the sector exists. Communities have relied upon nonprofits to provide education, culture, life-sustaining services, environmental stewardship, and places of refuge for centuries. In today’s highly polarized environment, understanding and managing trust have never been more important for organizations to own their license to operate, lead, and succeed. Given the outsized importance of trust, it is imperative to assess the status of that trust and how the sector can strengthen its most valuable asset
For the last six years, Independent Sector has partnered with Edelman Data and Intelligence to survey the American public, exploring the nuances of trust in American nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. These are the largest nationally representative surveys of their kind, surveying over 3,000 adults. We also conduct online focus groups to provide richer context for our findings. Given the outsized importance of trust to our sector, it is imperative to regularly assess the status of trust so, ultimately, we can fashion the policy and practice changes needed to build this critical asset.
