Trust in the Nonprofit Domain: Towards an Understanding of Public’s Trust in Nonprofit Organizations

Abstract

Trust in the nonprofit domain has been subject to a large interest both among scholars and practitioners over the past few years. Today, we differentiate between a range of different forms of trust, namely, organizational and sectoral trust as well as more generalized and institutional trust. Another differentiation in nonprofit literature relates to the subject that forms trust towards a nonprofit organization, reflected by the strength of the individual-organizational-relationship. In that, two forms of trust, namely, a narrow form of relational trust and broader trust among the public have evolved. While previous research provides varying conceptual approaches for explaining public’s trust in the nonprofit sector, most scholars, however, approach public trust from a rather narrow relationship management perspective. This chapter conceptualizes and operationalizes public trust from a broader perspective and emphasizes that to get public support to ultimately further their missions, nonprofit organizations should strive for building, maintaining, and restoring public’s trust. This chapter accordingly presents five mechanisms that are associated with public’s trust in nonprofit organizations: 1) promise of mission and values, 2) organizational reputation, 3) transparency and accountability, 4) performance and social impact, and 5) use of contributions. Thereby, recent trends in academic literature are identified—nonprofit branding and nonprofit accountability—that have great ability to address these mechanisms to successfully improve public trust. Results from this chapter provide nonprofit scholars with insights into a broader conceptualization and operationalization of public trust in nonprofit organizations, and with future research ideas. Nonprofit managers may benefit by gaining insights into how to sustainably improve trust among the general public by focusing on nonprofit branding and accountability strategies.