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Trust is having a moment

But that's nothing new. How news orgs, nonprofits and you go through a society designed for distrust.

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Trust is having a moment. We live in an era without trust. Sociologist Eric Klinenberg, in a reflection this week on how the U.S. handled Covid, notes that distrust is built into American life: while other countries built trust and solidarity, America — both during and after 2020 — left millions to fend for themselves. The collapse of social trust, wrote David Brooks in 2020, is the stuff of failed states.

The public apparently doesn’t trust journalists (and just the whole - waves hands - idea of journalism and news), a problem consuming plenty of attention. Projects like Trusting News are doing good work here. The premise of Hearken, with its focus on community engagement, and Solutions Journalism Network, which advises journalists to help show people their power to solve problems, offer the collaborative approaches that build trust.

Worrying for many folks in my network: nonprofits and community organizations have their own trust issues. Nonprofit leaders must confront the trust problem “before it’s too late” says the headline of a 2022 piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

You need authenticity to earn trust. Beige, boring, standoffish and technical language used by many (most?) groups keeps people at a distance.

Check out Finding Your Organization’s Authentic Voice (and Your Own) - a New Media Mentors online training (with follow-up support from mentors who’ve been there!) that will help you with capturing what is unique and powerful about your organization and turn your communications into authentic, compelling and engaging real talk.

Register

Rising inequality means more (and more visible) billionaires. It’s simple to paint high profile donors as in it for themselves. Beth Breeze, Director of the Center of Philanthropy at the University of Kent, tells Devex that “rather than being worried about good intentions that are imperfectly executed, I think that now the public are worried about the bad intentions of nonprofits and, in particular, of their donors.”

A few weeks ago, Spitfire Strategies released Replenishing trust: Civil society’s guide to reversing the trust deficit. Spitfire, a strategic communications firm that works with nonprofits and progressive movements, opens by saying:

Trust for institutions across society is declining. This growing trust deficit is a serious problem: It erodes a high-functioning pluralistic democracy, compromises public health and makes it impossible to solve collective problems like climate change.

Spitfire offers 10 actions leaders can take to earn trust including “Prioritize knowing, following and modeling moral norms” and “Encourage participation so people feel included and heard.” Check out the full report. They’ve done their research, found great sources and show steps forward.

That said, there’s nothing new here.

Trust in institutions (and each other) has been declining for decades - perhaps for as long as anyone has been observing the data. People point to social media, political polarization and disinfo campaigns as

In 1996, The Washington Post published a series on trust in America that opened with reporters Richard Morin and Dan Balz writing Americans Losing Trust in Each Other and Institutions. Their data from national surveys and other sources was grim. Some excerpts:

  • Today, nearly two in three Americans believe that most people can't be trusted;
  • Half say most people would cheat others if they had the chance, and an equal proportion agree that "most people are looking out for themselves.”

Morin and Balz note that lack of knowledge about how government works diminishes trust in governing institutions. Yet those with civic and policy knowledge didn’t report much higher levels of trust.

The prospects for the future didn’t sound good in 1996. Does this sound familiar?

An environment in which a majority of Americans believe that most people can't be trusted breeds attitudes that hold all politicians as corrupt, venal and self-serving, and government action as doomed to failure.

Instead of collaborative solution making we’re left with political sloganeering. We talk of draining the swamp. But even the likes of conservative pundit Ross Douthat notes that our time and energy is wrapped up in creating chaos instead of actually doing anything. Douthat writes of the GOP and Trump that “The goal of destabilization, after all, is to eventually create a new stability, in which your party and vision and coalition are understood by most Americans to be a safe and normal place to belong.”

Politically speaking, perhaps we’ve reached peak venality and failure. Distrust has moved from the symptom of a problem to the center of the post-truth reality. If we can’t trust our leaders we can at least stan them. But approaching political figures and movements as celebrity fandom groups, even quasi-religious cults, seems ill advised if we care about trust much less democracy or the future.

Woah. Seems grim. Where to now?

I think this spiraled from “trust has always been an issue” to “diminishing trust has doomed us” - and that’s not so helpful.

Most of us just want to get an interesting job, get more subscribers to our newsletters and find more members and donors. Fewer spam texts would be nice, too.

What I’d like to leave you with (and figuring that you’re a nonprofit leader, tech person, writer, digital news person, organizer, fundraiser, community builder, or wear many of these hats) is that neither journalism nor nonprofits and civic organizations are causing trust problems or can single-handedly fix them.

Measuring trust is like measuring love. It’s many things and different for everyone. Sure, we can gather data and build an algorithm that spits out per capita rates of love (or trust). But, really, you know it when you see it. It can happen overnight but also evolves over time. And our narrative of trust (like love) is crafted by what we see and experience in a lifetime of family, school, friendship, politics, work and community.

Rich Harwood, who knows more about civic and community engagement than anyone, talks about next steps in his recent piece What Does it Mean to Say ‘Enough.’

It’s time, Harwood says “…to come together and build. We must do the hard work of forging trust, getting our hands dirty in the messiness it takes to create progress and generate authentic hope.”

For news organizations, nonprofits, civic groups, associations, and companies - at least those who care for the communities in which people live - it means more than efficiency, service projects, and giving back.

It means advocating for and modeling community engagement with clients, customers and supporters. It means showing people how to help, inviting them in and showing them results that go beyond meeting fundraising goals.

It means asking for (and acting on) feedback, delivering content people can use, and being transparent about the work. Help people experience the warm glow, and the cold truth, of wins and losses.

It means knowing who your audience is and doing the best work, creating the most useful content, the best experience possible for THEM, not everyone. If someone else does better work on an issue someone cares about then send people that way. Build abundant partnerships, not competitive walls.

It also means individuals and funders trusting people like journalists to do the work they’re good at - and investing in that work.

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Get something new to read

Grow your audience, repurpose content and increase brand awareness with city guides. Better News offers up a super solid case study on turning content you already have into newsletters that lots of people need and use. [Joel Christopher, Robin Gibson, Areena Arora and Ryan Wilusz from Knox News]

Five things news media can do to respond to consistent news avoidance. News consumption is declining and there are surely structural reasons for this but, as a new book based on global research reports, people are increasingly disconnected from community (again, see the trust conversation above!). Interesting work here on the sources, impacts and solutions of news avoidance. [Dr. Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, Prof. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen / Reuters Institute]

Looking for real talk about AI and its role in culture, politics and narrative? Of course you are! Head to Jed Miller’s new Reaility Check.

We need your email address. You’re going to see more and more news sites requiring registration to view news stories. Tech news startup 404 Media explains why they’re doing this. Web advertising isn’t going to pay for news sites - and we’ll be better off for that - so don’t cry over organizations seeking to build audience relationships. (You should see more nonprofits and other content creators using registration but that’s another story.)

How should you approach audience research? I’ve had several conversations about “big listening” lately and the tools to do that. But there’s not enough attention paid to ongoing “little” listening and the conversations that teach you about your people. [Big Duck]

It’s time to prioritize audiences we know we can’t monetize. Laxmi Parthasarathy, chief operating officer of Global Press, on the partnerships and distribution strategies that get quality news stories in front of the people who can use them. It’s not easy on the revenue end but essential on the community and trust end. [Nieman Lab]

There is beauty, equity, and long-term community impact opportunity in an approach to audience engagement that prioritizes readers we aren’t seeking to monetize.

How fighting monopoly can save journalism. “Save” might be overselling it but this is a good read on how corporations rig the information environment. A project that AI could shift into warp speed. [Phillip Longman / Washington Monthly]

And if you haven’t yet, make time to read or listen to Vertigo Variations, the 2024 narrative predictions report from ReFrame.

Get a new job

These are some of the latest + intriguing roles. Head to the full list here. I keep it updated as new things come up (and drop out).

Journalism, media and content strategy

Nonprofit Campaigning and Leadership

Communications specific roles

Foundations and philanthropy

Politics, product and project leadership, other

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