Global PR giant Edelman has released its 2015 Trust Barometer, which shows “evaporating” trust — worldwide — for media, business, nonprofits and many governments (the institution with already the lowest trust levels).

Most Agitator readers will probably first want to know where trust levels stand in your country (27 were studied), and how nonprofits stack up against the other institutions.

There’s plenty of data in their report to satisfy that curiosity.

But in summary:

“In the last year, trust has declined for three of the four institutions measured. NGOs continue to be the most trusted institution, but trust in NGOs declined from 66 to 63 percent. Sixty percent of countries now distrust media. Trust in government increased slightly, driven by big gains in India, Russia and Indonesia but government is still distrusted in 19 of the 27 markets surveyed. And trust in business is below 50 percent in half of those markets.”

‘Scorecards’ aside, I urge you to be sure to review what Edelman says about Building Trust (and be sure to check out the pertinent slides, starting with #31, in their slideshare presentation).

Their advice is not aimed specifically at nonprofits, but I think you will see how their insights apply.

Says Edelman:

“Trust is built through specific attributes, which can be organized into five performance clusters: integrity, engagement, products and services, purpose and operations.

Of these clusters, the Trust Barometer reveals that integrity is most important, followed closely by engagement. As in years past, areas such as excellence in operations or products and services, while important, are simply what is expected.

The trust-building opportunity for business, therefore, lies squarely in the area of integrity and engagement. These areas encompass actions such as having ethical business functions, taking responsibility to address issues or crises, having transparent and open business practices, listening to customer needs and feedback, treating employees well, placing customers ahead of profit and communicating frequently on the state of the business — the very qualities also evidenced to build trust in innovation.”

My takeaway?

Strong performance in advancing your mission is obviously important to building trust … but your donors almost take that performance for granted.

Assuming your are effectively communicating program success, the more significant opportunities for building trust lie in perceptions of integrity (transparency, ethical behavior) and engagement (listening and responding to customers/donors).

Integrity and engagement — two factors you directly control and can improve.

Tom

P.S. The report includes an interesting discussion of trust as it relates to innovation … the more trust, the greater openness to innovation. So, bringing this from the macro to the micro level, does your CEO trust you?