As if they didn’t have enough to worry about, philanthropists recently learned that a growing number of Americans mistrust them. A national survey released last month by Independent Sector found that just 4 percentage points separate the share of those expressing a great deal of trust in philanthropy (30 percent) from those expressing little trust (26 percent). This represents a 5 percentage-point increase from 2020 among those who say they distrust philanthropy.
To make matters worse, the original report erroneously suggested that just 4 percent of the survey respondents had a great deal of trust in philanthropy. (Independent Sector subsequently issued a correction.)
While the nonprofit field as a whole fared much better, with a 45 percentage-point gap between those with “high trust” and those with “low trust,” the report’s overarching conclusion was that trust, especially in philanthropy, declined in the past year. This was especially true for the youngest group surveyed — Gen Z. Their trust in nonprofits was already the lowest among age groups surveyed but fell even further, from 61 percent to 45 percent.
In the view of Independent Sector and many others, these are worrisome trends. But should they be? To be sure, we have long regarded trustworthiness as important for philanthropic organizations, particularly those that support or provide vital services such as health care. That’s why the tax rules under which nonprofits operate try to restrict the benefits that directors, employees and others can obtain for themselves. But trust is not a simple concept and sometimes conflicts with other attributes that are considered vital for nonprofits.
Trust, for starters, can’t be quantified as a “high” or “low” binary. It varies in degrees. The Independent Sector survey of 8,000 American adults, conducted by Edelman Data & Intelligence, tried to capture this reality by asking respondents to place themselves on a 9-point scale according to how much they trusted philanthropy to “do what is right.” While the report highlighted the percentages on the high end and low end, the most telling figure may be the 33 percent of respondents who fell in the middle. (Approximately 10 percent expressed no opinion.) In other words, the proportion of the public with what the pollsters saw as a “neutral” view of philanthropy was greater than either the 26 percent who had little trust or the 30 percent who had a great deal of trust.
This suggests that Americans are a long way from doubting philanthropy’s worth — even if they aren’t strongly convinced of its value.
Trust can also have different meanings for different people. For some, trusting philanthropy to “do what is right” could signify an expectation that it will address important problems, while those claiming distrust may doubt philanthropy’s ability on that score. Others might judge trustworthiness according to donors’ action — whether they behave charitably or promote their own interests. And still others may consider transparency or accountability to those served the most important criterion. Finally, in today’s polarized environment, perceptions of ideological or political leanings among grant makers might affect how much they are trusted by some members of the public.
As is typical of such surveys, the researchers asked an open-ended question, which allows respondents to use whatever definition of “trust” they prefer. But that also makes interpreting their answers harder.
Confidence vs. Trust
Another survey question illustrates this problem. The respondents were asked about their “confidence” in “the ability of philanthropic organizations and individuals today to help strengthen American society.” Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) expressed “confidence,” while 23 percent did not. Since the results diverge so much, those who took the survey presumably understood “confidence” as somehow distinct from “trust.” But exactly how to interpret this difference is anyone’s guess.
It’s also important to recognize that people typically have more trust in organizations or individuals they know. For example, the 2019 edition of the Phi Delta Kappan poll of public attitudes toward education found that 44 percent of Americans gave “A” or “B” grades to the schools their children attended, but just 19 percent said they would award those grades to the nation’s schools over all. Similarly, a recent Pew survey reported that Americans think “more positively” about local elected officials than national ones.
The Independent Sector survey found this was true for philanthropy as well. Among those “familiar” with philanthropy, 43 percent had a great deal of trust and 21 percent had low trust. For those unfamiliar with philanthropy, the proportion was reversed, with 32 percent saying they had little trust and 17 percent saying they had a lot. Those who knew about the nonprofit field as a whole were even more likely to trust it than those who did not.
Generational Differences
Differences like these complicate generalizations about “trust.” For example, do members of Gen Z have less trust in nonprofits because they are younger, more idealistic, and more likely to be skeptical of institutional authority, or is it simply because they have less experience with these organizations than their elders? Two-thirds of Americans, according to the Independent Sector report, are more likely to trust nonprofits that “have a presence in their local community” and nearly half thought more highly of organizations that provided them service.
In the end, trustworthiness is just one attribute among many we value in the nonprofit world. Another is the willingness of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations to address issues or provide services that are less likely to be handled by governments or businesses, which must consider the wants and needs of voters and customers. Philanthropy is free, at least in theory, to take on causes that may be unpopular or to try novel ways of addressing problems. But such actions also risk arousing suspicion, criticism, opposition, and, yes, distrust, from those who prefer less controversial, more conventional approaches.
For several years, polls have tracked declining trust in government, business, and other important institutions of American life. In such an environment, an apparent loss of trust in philanthropy is not surprising. But as long as a modicum of trust remains — as the Independent Sector report suggests it does — this trend need not be cause for alarm. To the contrary, it may indicate that philanthropy is doing its job.
