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We all need good news these days, and some can be found in the new annual survey from Independent Sector and the PR firm Edelman. It reports that 57 percent of Americans trust nonprofits, a jump of five percentage points from last year, when the figure dropped significantly. What’s more, survey participants said that they trusted nonprofits more than corporations, government, or media to reduce national divisions — a finding that echoes polling last year that shows the public believes philanthropy is key to brokering peace and forging partnerships between opposing sides.
Despite these encouraging numbers, we need to be mindful that trust in all of America’s institutions has been eroding for years, and nonprofits aren’t exempt. In a Morning Consult poll released in June, more than 4 in 10 respondents said they had experienced a loss of trust in an individual nonprofit. Perhaps most concerning, trust is declining with each passing generation: Just 46 percent of Gen Z adults expressed trust in nonprofits compared with 67 percent of baby boomers.
One reason we’re not doing better: Nonprofits are focused more on transactions with supporters than relationship building. This is particularly true with low-dollar fundraising. Conventional wisdom encourages fundraisers to ask and ask and ask for donations, and then ask again. With this mindset, every interaction with someone is also an opportunity to solicit a gift.
Yes, the approach gets some money in the door, but at a huge cost. The heavy solicitation contributes to the “leaky bucket” problem. Organizations often spend big on donor-acquisition efforts to fill their “buckets” of supporters, assuming that new donors will give for years. In reality, fewer than a quarter of first-time donors to a nonprofit give a second time. A doom cycle sets in within organizations, as they grow increasingly panicked about revenue and tell fundraisers to increase the number of asks. This constant, machine-like solicitation contributes to staff burnout, the number one concern of executive directors, according to a recent survey by the Center for Effective Philanthropy.
To make matters worse, barreling towards us is a problem that will supersize distrust in society. Artificial intelligence can blur the lines between what is real and what is fake. Bots generated by a growing industry of fake news, reviews, and recommendations are flooding review and recommendation sites like Yelp, chipping away at institutional reputations.
How to Bolster Trust
Nonprofits should make it a top priority to increase their trustworthiness in the eyes of the public and donors. Groups that rely on donations and volunteers to meet their missions must gain the highest level of trust from supporters.
Here are three essential steps:
Start inside your organization. People on the outside aren’t going to trust your group if people on the inside don’t. Donors and the public see bureaucratic processes and a lack of transparency — particularly around decision making — as signs that management doesn’t trust employees to do their jobs. Throw in finger pointing and blame games and you’ve got a hot mess.
Think of what’s lost when mistrust is the internal norm. Staff members can’t make decisions quickly. Time is wasted assigning blame. The solution: hire good people, train them well, and let them do their jobs.
Also, remember that people do not trust opaque organizations. Black-box nonprofits seem mysterious at best, bureaucratic at worst. It is critically important to show the world that real people work at your organization and that you are reachable and responsive.
There are a few ways to test your transparency:
- Can website visitors quickly identify who works at your organization? A faceless site that dwells on processes and services isn’t likely to make human connections. Lead with your people; they are your greatest asset for building a connection with visitors.
- Is a staff member always available to help? As a test, have friends try to connect with your group. Did they wait forever on hold? Did their emails get answered?
- Are you sharing not just what you do but also what you’re learning and why it’s important? Your communications are more than promotion of a brand, logo, or a laundry list of programs. A real, human place shares and learns with other people. Do visitors to your website or social media find stories of such learning?
Build a vibrant community through your organization. Nonprofits are the perfect elixir for the loneliness epidemic, which is a leading cause of our country’s polarization. We offer one of the few ways that people can meet someone across the red-blue divide or even from across town. Jury duty may force people to mix, but people choose to mix when they volunteer at the food pantry.
Instead of focusing your organization on what it can get from supporters, think about what you can give to volunteers, low-dollar donors, major donors, or even just people interested in your work (they count, too!). Can you connect them to other supporters? Through our giving platform at Every.org, donors celebrate and share their contributions with friends and encourage them to donate, too.
Giving circles also are a wonderful way to break through social divides. Your organization could create circles for your local supporters through which they build relationships.
Also: Can you ask supporters for advice on a problem? Can you build an ambassador network where they nurture new supporters?
Explain how you use artificial intelligence. A.I. is entering the workplace at lightning speed. Already, it’s a handy tool to smooth out workflow, answer questions via chatbot, and screen resumes. Now is the time for organizations to create ethical and responsible use policies to ensure that people are always in charge of the bots. All organizations will use A.I. in some way in the near future. It is important to carefully think through where, when, and how bots do work that people typically do.
In addition, organizations should be clear with the public about what’s automated and what’s not. For instance, if you use a website chatbot to answer rote questions (“When are you open?” “Is my contribution tax-deductible?”), make sure users understand that and know how to reach staff.
Nonprofits have the tough job of trying to make the world a healthier, happier, safer place. But we shouldn’t make the work harder than it has to be. We need to ensure that people are always in charge of work, not the bots, and focused on making one person’s life better.
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