What Actually Builds Trust with Funders

Fifty years of research points to a clear answer, and it is not what most organizations lead with.

Ask most mission-driven organizations what builds trust with funders, and the answers usually sound familiar: strong outcomes, responsible financials, experienced staff, consistent program delivery and a clear track record.

Those answers are not wrong. Funders need to know an organization is capable of doing the work and responsible enough to manage support well. But those may not be the signals that build trust most powerfully.

That distinction matters because many organizations spend most of their communications energy proving competence. They explain their programs, count their outputs, summarize their experience and describe their operations. Then they wonder why the case still does not quite land.

The issue may not be a lack of evidence. It may be that the evidence is answering only part of the trust question.

Trust is not one thing

A comprehensive meta-analysis published in the Journal of Consumer Research helps explain why. The research, led by Mansur Khamitov of Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business with colleagues Koushyar Rajavi, Der-Wei Huang and Yuly Hong, synthesized 2,147 effect sizes from 549 studies across five decades of empirical research.

In plain English: they looked at a lot of trust research.

Their goal was to understand what actually drives people to trust organizations. The study identified two broad categories of trust signals: integrity-based signals and reliability-based signals.

Reliability-based signals include things like competence, quality, value and visible investment in marketing or communication. These are the signals many organizations naturally emphasize. They show that the organization is capable, consistent and able to deliver.

Integrity-based signals include reputation, ethical behavior, social responsibility and attachment to the organization. These signals show whether the organization is known, values-aligned, responsible and meaningful to the people connected to it.

Both categories matter. But they are not equally powerful.

The research found that integrity-based signals outperformed reliability-based signals in driving trust. Reputation was the strongest driver across the entire dataset. Ethical behavior and social responsibility came next. Attachment to the organization ranked third.

Competence, the signal many organizations work hardest to demonstrate, ranked sixth out of eight trust drivers. Competence helped. But reputation, ethical alignment and attachment helped more.

That should matter to any organization preparing for grants, sponsorships, partnerships or other high-stakes asks.

Competence is necessary, but it is not enough

This does not mean organizations should stop demonstrating competence. A funder still needs to see that your organization understands the work, manages resources responsibly and can follow through.

But if your communications are built almost entirely around competence, you may be overinvesting in one part of the trust equation while underinvesting in the signals that move trust more deeply.

Funders are not only asking whether your organization can do the work. They are also asking whether people trust you, whether your values show up in your behavior, whether you are known for something meaningful, and whether partners, participants, funders, board members and community members have reason to stay connected to your work.

Those questions are harder to answer with a chart. They require a different kind of communications infrastructure.

Reputation is not visibility

One of the most useful findings in the research is the importance of reputation. But reputation should not be confused with general awareness.

Being visible is not the same as being known for something.

An organization can post frequently, send newsletters, attend events and still have a vague reputation. People may recognize the name without understanding what the organization does, why it matters or what makes it trustworthy.

A stronger reputation is more specific. It is built when people can say things like: they follow through; they understand the community; they are thoughtful partners; they know how to work across systems; they are careful with resources; they listen before they act; they do what they say they will do.

That kind of reputation does not come from one campaign. It comes from repeated behavior over time, made visible through consistent communications.

For funder-readiness, this matters because funders rarely evaluate an organization only by what it submits. They triangulate. They listen to community signals. They look at public presence. They notice whether the organization’s language, materials, relationships and reputation all point in the same direction.

A proposal can describe competence. Reputation helps confirm it.

Integrity has to be observable

Ethical behavior and social responsibility were also among the strongest drivers of trust.

For mission-driven organizations, this can feel obvious. Of course the organization is values-driven. Of course the work is rooted in care, responsibility or justice. Of course the people involved are trying to do the right thing.

But funders and partners cannot always see that from the outside.

Integrity is not built by saying “integrity” three times in a values statement and hoping it appears in the mirror. It has to be observable.

That may show up in how the organization talks about the people it serves. It may show up in who is represented in leadership and decision-making. It may show up in transparency around finances, partnerships, program design or community feedback. It may show up in how the organization acknowledges complexity instead of smoothing everything into a success story.

The point is not to perform virtue. The point is to make the organization’s values visible in its choices.

This is where many organizations have a real opportunity. Their ethical grounding may be genuine, but it is often under-documented and under-communicated. They assume people can see it. Sometimes they can. Often, they need help connecting the dots.

Attachment is built over time

The third major integrity-based signal in the research is attachment.

Attachment is not the same as awareness. It is not the same as being on an email list. It is not the same as remembering the logo. Attachment means people feel a meaningful connection to the organization.

For nonprofits and mission-driven organizations, this can be a powerful form of trust. People support organizations not only because the work is useful, but because the organization has become part of how they understand their community, their values or their own sense of contribution.

That kind of connection is not created by one annual appeal or one impact report. It is built through sustained engagement.

It grows when people hear from the organization consistently, see evidence of its values, understand its role and feel invited into something larger than a transaction.

For funders, attachment may look different than it does for individual donors or volunteers, but it still matters. A funder may develop attachment through years of observing an organization’s judgment, adaptability, partnerships, transparency and contribution to the field.

That attachment creates confidence. It gives the funder a reason to keep paying attention.

Where organizations often overinvest

When organizations prepare for funders, they often focus heavily on reliability-based signals. They gather program data. They document outputs. They describe staff experience. They explain budgets. They update grant narratives. They list accomplishments.

Again, none of this is wrong.

But if the communications system stops there, the organization may be proving it can operate without fully showing why it is trusted. That is the gap.

Many organizations have strong integrity-based signals, but they are scattered, informal or invisible. The community partner quote is buried in an old report. The clearest explanation of the organization’s values lives in the executive director’s remarks from last year’s event. The most compelling evidence of ethical practice shows up in how the program is designed, but no one has written that down. The organization is known and respected by people close to the work, but its public presence does not reflect that reputation.

The trust exists. The communications do not always carry it.

The changing trust landscape

The Khamitov research also found that both integrity-based and reliability-based trust signals have become stronger over time as drivers of trust.

That is important.

In a period when public trust in institutions is often described as declining, the research suggests something more useful than despair: organizations can still build trust when they invest in the right signals.

Baseline trust may be lower. Earned trust still matters. And in some contexts, it may matter more than ever.

That means mission-driven organizations cannot treat trust as an abstract quality they either have or do not have. Trust is built through repeated signals. Some are operational. Some are relational. Some are public. Some are embedded in language, design, evidence and behavior.

The work is to make those signals visible and aligned.

Where Funder Ready fits

At Write Design Group, we see trust as one layer of a larger readiness system.

Our Funder Ready framework examines six interdependent layers: Operations, Public Presence, Trust, Identity, Credibility and Communications.

Trust does not live in one paragraph of a proposal. It is shaped by the relationship among all six layers.

• It is affected by Operations, because follow-through and consistency depend on internal systems.

• It is affected by Public Presence, because funders and partners form impressions before and beyond the formal ask.

• It is affected by Identity, because an organization that cannot clearly explain who it is and what it stands for is harder to trust.

• It is affected by Credibility, because reputation needs evidence behind it.

• And it is affected by Communications, because the signals of reputation, integrity and attachment have to be visible to the people making decisions.

This is why funder-readiness is not just a proposal problem. A strong proposal may describe the ask. But the broader communications system helps determine whether the organization feels trustworthy enough to support.

Trust needs more than proof

Most organizations know they need to show outcomes, capacity and responsible stewardship. They do. But if the goal is trust, the research suggests organizations should also ask different questions:

• What are we known for?

• Where do our values show up in observable ways?

• Who can speak to our reputation?

• How do we create meaningful connection over time?

• Do our public materials reflect the trust we have actually earned?

• Have we made integrity visible, or have we assumed people will infer it?

Those questions are harder than pulling numbers from a spreadsheet. They are also closer to how trust is built.

Competence matters. But reputation, integrity and attachment may matter more than many organizations realize.

The organizations that understand that distinction are better positioned to build the kind of trust that lasts beyond one proposal, one campaign or one funding cycle.

About this research

Khamitov, M., Rajavi, K., Huang, D., & Hong, Y. (2024). Consumer trust: Meta-analysis of 50 years of empirical research. Journal of Consumer Research, 51(1), 7–18. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad065

Research shared with Write Design Group by Mansur Khamitov, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Go Hoosiers!