Trust is the currency of civil society. “It is mutual trust, more than mutual interest that holds human associations together,” the esteemed H.L. Mencken once noted. In that sense, trust is the nonprofit equivalent of contract law, but more powerful, more human, and less litigious.
The Trust Blog is dedicated to exploring and advancing the pursuit of trust-based relationships in the nonprofit sector. Although GuideStar wants to be your partner in that pursuit, this blog is not about GuideStar. It’s about you, your organizations, and the people who place their trust in you.
We believe that nonprofit organizations are incredibly fortunate to have the trust of millions of donors and volunteers, of journalists and activists, and of our peers, in other organizations. The double meaning of the word “trust” has special significance for us, in that we truly are trustees, not just of our stakeholders’ money and time, but of their aspirations for a better world.
Many of us spend a lot of time thinking of trust building as a responsibility. But it’s also just plain good sense. Building trust is building social capital. Building trust is what enables us to get things done. We want to help you go beyond the notion of trust as some kind of external responsibility and instead leverage it as a strategic capacity that will make every day-to-day aspect of your work more powerful.
One way to get a sense of what The Trust Blog is about is to take a look at the Contributors page. These GuideStar staff members will share with you their efforts, their insights, their discoveries, and their questions about what it means to earn, keep, lose, and restore the trust that our organizations need to accomplish our work. We hope you will engage and challenge them.
We plan to invite guest bloggers who are not affiliated with GuideStar to share their thoughts on this topic. If you want to add your voice as a contributor, please let us know.
