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What’s Trust Got to Do with It?

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How important is trust when it comes to fundraising? A new report from the Better Business Bureau sought to find out, and they discovered some startling truths about trust and charities. 

In short, trust is in short supply for charities across the board. And it’s affecting who gives and how much they give. The survey, the Wise Giving Alliance Report, looked at how much people trust charities in general, how that trust level compares with other institutions, and how it has changed over time.

Then, it explored the specific factors that lead to greater trust, as well as what makes people trust charities less. 

We’ll unpack it all so you can take the survey’s insights and use them to help grow trust in your nonprofit.

Survey Methodology for the Wise Giving Alliance

The survey began in 2017 and has been conducted every year since then, so this latest data is the sixth iteration. 

This round, from 2022, surveyed 3200 adults in the US and Canada. It included samples from five generations including Matures, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. And, it included people from three categories of household income, broken up as such:

Here’s what the study found.

How Much Do Donors Trust Charities?

One of the most startling findings is the dichotomy between how important donors say trust in charities is, and how much they actually trust charities. 

70% of respondents said it’s essential for people to trust charities. This percentage has ranged from 63% to 73% since the survey began in 2017. So, trust is essential, most people say.

But then, only 20% of people say they “highly trust” charities. 

This means a very large segment of the population wants to have a high degree of trust in charities, but that most of them don’t. 

Trust in Charities Compared to Other Institutions

The funny thing, or not so funny, is that as low as trust in charities appears to be, it’s even lower for most other institutions. 

Survey respondents were asked to compare their trust in charities with organized religion, banks, business, media, and government. In all five comparisons, there was no competition. Trust in charities dwarfed all others. 

Comparing banks, businesses, and organized religion, about 70% of people trust charities more than these. And when comparing charities to media and government, about 85% of people trust charities more.

This is a clearcut case of “it could be worse.” 

As much as people don’t trust charities, they’re faring a whole lot better than other pillars of modern society.

And let’s be clear – this refers to people who say they “highly trust” in these institutions. The study report doesn’t go into detail on the rest, but surely there are also a sizable number who said they “trust or “somewhat trust” as well. 

How Trust Has Changed Over Time

Overall, trust in charities hasn’t changed much since this survey began. Over the six years of the survey, those saying they “highly trust” charities has ranged only from 17 to 20%. 

This suggests there may not be much you can do about it. But, that would be incorrect. Yes, perhaps across the whole system it would take quite a lot to move this needle very far.

But your specific organization doesn’t have to be like all the others. You can increase trust in your organization, and we’ll discuss some of the strategies you can use a bit later. One such factor, though outside your control, shows that this is possible. 

For, while the 20% figure seems to hold pretty steady over the last six years, when you look at trust in specific categories of charities, you see much more variation. 

For the first five years of this survey, religious charities ranked highest in “high trust” level, peaking at 32% in 2017. But in the most recent year, two categories surpassed the 26% rating for religious charities in 2022. These two were veterans organizations (28% high trust) and nonprofit hospitals (27% high trust). 

In all, there were 13 charity categories asked about in the survey, and the three mentioned already plus animal nonprofits, social services, health organizations and police and firefighter nonprofits all scored higher trust marks than the 20% overall rating. 

So if your nonprofit is in one of those categories, there appears to be a slightly higher existing trust factor for you. 

But the fact remains, these are still very low figures, and every organization needs to do more to cultivate trust among their donors and potential donors in the community.

What Makes Donors Trust Charities More

Now we get to some of the positive results. What can you do to instill more trust in your charity or organization? 

The survey asked people to choose their top three factors that signal the most trust in a charity. So, if you work to address the top choices in this list, you will increase trust in your organization. 

Here’s the full list of ways to improve trust given in the survey, and the percentage of respondents who chose each one:

It doesn’t take long to see the single most impactful trust-building strategy you can use, as well as the ones that aren’t going to make much difference. 

Don’t waste your time with celebrity endorsements, for example. And while name recognition is a pretty strong trust signal, as we might expect, there’s not much you can do about that in the short run. It takes a while to build that up, so if you don’t have it already, that’s not going to be your best top strategy. 

But clearly, by far the most impactful thing you can do is tout the accomplishments your organization has made with regard to your mission. We’ll come back to this topic again in a moment.

What Makes Donors Trust Charities Less

Before we talk more about the good things you can do to cultivate trust, the survey also asked what scenarios can discourage people from donating to a charity. 

So, while you want to grow trust, you want to avoid ending up in the top scenarios in this list:

Donors rightly recognize the importance of stability, because it’s something regular businesses and average people should be aiming toward as well. So you can feel good about trying to build up some financial reserves.

But other than that, the other four items on this list all seem to have generated some significant negative reaction. 

It’s especially noteworthy that items 2 and 3 really both address the same core issue – communication with donors. And, these also directly address the number one item from the previous list – sharing your accomplishments. 

Best News – Wealthy People Trust Charities More

With 20% trust ratings in nonprofits, it’s easy to get discouraged. But hold on there. If you’ve been paying attention to the kinds of data you can see from the Fundraising Report Card, you know that your wealthy donors represent a far outsize portion of your revenue, if you’re like most organizations. 

So it’s heartening to learn from the survey that wealthier donors are also more trusting of charities. 

The survey found that wealthy people (household income above $200k) “highly trust” charities more than people with lower incomes in 10 of the 13 charity categories asked about. The widest gaps showed up in educational, religious, and health organizations. 

For example, 23.1% of wealthy people trust educational charities, compared to 15.9% of households that make under $70k.

It is worth nothing that in other categories, especially veterans, youth development, and police/firefighter organizations, more people who make under $70k trust these organizations than do the wealthy. 

But in the ten other categories, the wealthy trust nonprofits more. 

How to Increase Trust in Your Charity

To close this general analysis of the Wise Giving Alliance Report, here are a few things you can do to increase trust in your charity. 

  1. Communication, communication, communication

As you saw, by far more than any other factor, potential donors want to know the accomplishments of your nonprofit. They want to see impact, effectiveness, change, and evidence that what you’re doing is working. That’s it. 

Do that, do it well, and keep doing it – and tell everyone about it as often as possible, and trust will grow. As you saw earlier, it reduces trust when you don’t do this, and when you don’t make it clear what you’re doing with money given by donors. 

How do you communicate impact? That could be another whole article, but here are a few ways:

  1. Use multiple channels

Don’t hold back, and don’t restrict yourself. 

Use email, as many social media channels as you can manage, direct mail, SMS, and other channels as long as they’re financial feasible. Remember – you don’t want to violate the number one reported reason people distrust charities – spending too many donor dollars on fundraising and management. 

That’s why expensive TV ads can be problematic. Overly polished ads – though they can be effective if done well – also run the risk of causing potential donors to get skeptical about how you’re spending the money they might donate. 

But email, SMS, and social media are what most people use for everyday simple communication. These are low-cost channels that don’t get perceived as expensive. Same with direct mail. 

The point is – donors need to hear from you frequently, and they need to know their gifts are making a difference. Share your accomplishments across multiple channels.

  1. Use multiple formats

Lastly, use multiple formats. Not just writing. Use images in the form of photos, infographics, graphs, charts, and other graphics. Use video. 

A combination of formats will engage more donors, because people respond to different styles of communication. 

Use these three strategies, as frequently as possible, and trust in your nonprofit will grow over time, and with more people. 

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