How to Practice Trust-Based Communications
July 24, 2025
By: Peter Panepento
One of the biggest recent trends in the foundation world is trust-based philanthropy — the practice of building mutual accountability with nonprofits and the communities they serve.
Trust-based philanthropy aims to move foundations away from traditional, top-down approaches and toward the practice of working in partnership with the communities they support.
When done well, it can rewire the way foundations approach their work — and create powerful, community-led efforts to address problems and advance change.
As we’ve supported foundations that practice trust-based philanthropy, we’ve been struck by the fact that these organizations could accomplish even more by expanding the trust-based philanthropy concept into their communications.
In fact, now is an ideal time for foundations — as well as nonprofits, companies, and higher education institutions — to embrace what we’re calling trust-based communications.
Why Trust-Based Communications?
Trust in our institutions is in short supply these days.
A new report by Independent Sector finds fewer than 4 in 10 Americans have high trust in foundations, and only 1 in 3 trust corporate foundations.
To be fair, philanthropy still scores much higher than government, the news media, and big businesses.
But that’s part of the problem.
Due to several converging factors — political divides, disinformation, social media, to name just a few — trust in institutions and our fellow citizens is at an all-time low. And if things don’t change in a hurry, this problem will likely get even worse.
Organizations that serve the public good — foundations and nonprofits, especially — may be our last hope at beginning to rebuild that trust.
And because mistrust is so rampant, we can’t expect to address it by using the same communications tactics we’ve always employed.
Instead, we must take active steps to involve our communities in creating and validating our messages and stories.
We can do that in two important ways:
1. Engaging our communities in our communications decision making
2. Embracing ethical storytelling
Engaging Communities
One of the key tenets of trust-based philanthropy is that the people closest to a problem are often best equipped to identify a solution.
The same is also true for helping identify the stories we tell, the language we use, and the channels we employ to reach our communities.
Those who live in communities often have the best perspective on what's important and what will resonate.
Even the best communications professionals are limited by their own worldview and access to information. And those limitations can create disconnects with the people they’re trying to reach.
One way to address this issue — and build trust — is by creating an advisory group of community members who can help you bridge gaps, identify stories, ensure more effective messaging, and become ambassadors.
For our soon-to-be-released Community Foundation Communications Survey, we invited professionals from across our field to serve as an advisory committee to help us make informed decisions about what questions to ask and how to promote the survey to their colleagues.
With their input, we were able to create a better survey.
Just as importantly, committee members served as validators and door openers — ensuring their peers would see value in spending upwards of an hour of their time to complete the survey.
Because of their partnership, we received more than 100 completed responses (an impressive figure for a first-time survey). And they are now helping us make decisions about how to present the results.
Creating and maintaining an advisory committee takes time and a willingness to cede power. But it can be a powerful strategy for building trust — especially for community-based work.
Ethical Storytelling
To build trust, communicators must also take deliberate steps to honor the stories and experiences of the people and organizations we spotlight in our storytelling.
Often, the subjects we profile and the stories we share involve trauma and vulnerability — and our duty to telling these stories with dignity goes well beyond making sure we have our facts straight.
It also means giving our sources the opportunity to review and approve the stories we share — and understand and have a voice in where and when their stories are told.
Many social-good organizations have adopted ethical storytelling policies to guide how they produce content.
Need inspiration? Here’s a guide we helped develop in partnership with the nine community foundations who are part of NEON — Nexus for Equity and Opportunity Nationwide.
Leaning into trust-based communications requires an ongoing commitment to working closely with the communities and people we serve.
But this commitment will help you build stronger and more durable relationships, make your content more credible, and advance your organization’s mission.
