Re-Pinking Trust

By Helen Vollmer, President

Last week, one of the most credible, respected non-profits made a near fatal error. Susan G. Komen for the Cure, much beloved and credited for bringing the fight against breast cancer to the forefront, announced it was pulling funding from Planned Parenthood. Almost as quickly as Rick Perry could say, “oops!” Komen retracted its initial decision after much message fumbling and unanticipated public backlash that actually boosted donations to Planned Parenthood.

What’s up here? It’s the new dynamics that play in building trust.

According to Edelman’s 2012 Trust Barometer findings, societal attributes such as listening, ethics and addressing society’s needs are now more important in building trust than operational attributes such as consistent financial returns, innovation, and leadership. Certainly our findings show this is true in moving business from a license to operate to a license to lead. But in a time of high skepticism even NGOs, which continue to rank higher in trust than business, government and media, must be transparent with their constituents as to how they are impacting their communities and where they stand on issues that drive their missions forward.

And the new driver of trust? As evidenced by the court of public opinion in last week’s Komen blunders, it’s social media. While traditional media sources are still the most trusted channels of information, social media—networking sites, content sharing sites, blogs and microblogging sites—are fueling the conversation, rapidly engaging people in opinion, and now toppling governments (Egypt), forcing NGO decisions (Komen) and calling into question how businesses operate (News of the World). Pretty powerful stuff, huh?

What is the world coming to? At the end of the day, it’s really quite simple. Honesty and openness is the rule of the day. When combined with social good, we all win.