Religious organizations are no longer the most trusted charities in the United States, according to a report by the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance. Religious institutions had topped the list since the group began conducting its annual survey about trust and giving in 2017. This year veterans groups and nonprofit hospitals were the most trusted.
One-third of those surveyed said they would be less likely to donate to a group with high fundraising and management expenses. They also said that donating goods like food and clothing had the biggest impact, followed by volunteering and giving money.
The report — which is based on a December 2022 electronic survey of 2,100 American adults commissioned by the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance — found big generational differences. Older respondents were more likely to trust religious institutions and veterans groups. Younger survey participants were more likely to trust international aid groups and civil-rights and community-action groups.
Importance of Trust
Trust is crucial for nonprofits that hope to raise money, says Elvia Castro, associate director for charity evaluation at the Giving Alliance. In this year’s survey, about 70 percent of respondents said it was essential to trust a charity before giving — but only 20 percent said they highly trust charities.
“Most people say that it’s important for them to start with trust before they are willing to engage,” Castro says. “Once you go past that point, it’s an individual charity’s job to build that engagement.”
People give because they believe in the work of an organization and they want their donations to make a difference, says Una Osili, associate dean for research and international programs at the Lilly School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. But unlike buying something from a store, a donor doesn’t get anything tangible in return for their payment.
“As a donor, you have to take the mission of an organization, what it says, and put your faith, confidence, and trust in that organization, their leadership, their staff, that they will do what they say they’re going to do,” she says. “The evolution of the nonprofit sector has depended on donors having high levels of trust and confidence in the organizations that they give to.”
With the exception of the drop in trust in religious institutions from 2021 to 2022, trust in nonprofits has been on the rise since 2020. Osili says part of the reason may be that during the pandemic, people saw charities in their communities helping others. In a study she co-authored, community foundations, an often obscure but important element of local philanthropy, were the second most trusted kind of charitable group.
“Whether it’s a flood or California wildfires or even the recent crisis in Hawaii, it was the community foundation that was very involved,” she says. “Especially with Covid, many people saw community foundations as the place where a lot of other organizations went for help.”
Donors’ willingness to trust charities can often be damaged by scandal, often unfairly, Osili says. In the for-profit world, scandals generally affect the company that transgressed. The Enron scandal only changed opinions about Enron, not all energy companies, she says. But high-profile nonprofit scandals often tarnish groups that have nothing to do with the bad behavior.
“The scandals don’t just affect that one organization or leader. They can have this really long-lasting effect. People still remember what happened to an organization several years ago, even if there’s been new leadership,” she says. “It’s really important for leaders and nonprofits to be transparent and accountable, especially around being good stewards of those resources but also around just sharing the results.”
Controversies Erode Trust
Scandals may be part of changing attitudes toward religious groups, says Warren Smith, president of MinistryWatch. He points to sexual-abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and in Southern Baptist churches as well as individual controversies, like the affair that the wife of former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. had and other allegations about Falwell’s behavior that led to his resignation. “The fact that trust in religious institutions has gone down is particularly troubling,” Smith says. “But the findings are not really surprising.”
The impact of falling levels of trust has not yet hit religious groups financially, Smith says. His organization conducts surveys of the 1,000 largest Christian ministries in the United States. Giving to those organizations grew by about 10 percent to $41.5 billion last year. However, he says, many ministries are very concerned about their ability to raise money in the future. Fundraising was their top concern in a recent MinistriyWatch survey, overtaking staffing concerns from the year before.
One factor is a very large generational difference in how people view religious charities, Castro says. In the survey, 35 percent of those surveyed that were 76 and older trusted religious institutions, but only 18 percent of those in Generation Z did. Castro says that means it’s likely that trust in religious organizations will continue to fall over time.
Local and Global
Trust in religious groups is just one of many big differences between the oldest and youngest people surveyed. Younger people are more likely to trust international aid groups and community groups, seemingly opposite ends of the nonprofit spectrum. Younger people are drawn to both global issues and very local ones, in part because social media helps them feel connected to other people and issues around the globe, Osili says.
Younger survey participants were also more likely than other age groups to respond to passion and sincerity in fundraising appeals. Older respondents were more likely to respond to third-party evaluations.
Those surveyed who were older were more likely to trust bigger institutions and were far more likely to be deterred from giving by large amounts spent on administration. Younger survey participants were more likely to be deterred if they were not sure what the charity was doing with their money.
That’s a trend that was encouraging for Osili. “Of course, charities strive to be efficient,” she says. “But there’s also a recognition that running an effective organization requires infrastructure, staff, and administrative expenses.”
