If, across philanthropy, we are working to build and deepen trust — between funders and grantee partners, board and staff members...between organizations, teams or any two individuals — how do you measure it? How do we know we’re doing it right?
In a recent conversation at TGP, we landed on the somewhat unsatisfactory answer of, well, maybe we can’t. “There may be some things about human relationships that you just can’t measure,” Senior Advisor Dawn Chirwa shared. “Like love and friendship, trust is something that you feel and experience. When you know, you know.”
As humans we naturally have a hard time with this answer and the uncertainty that it brings (there’s a great article by social psychologist Heidi Grant and EY Chief Learning Officer Tal Goldhamer on why we’re not wired for uncertainty). So, we set out to see if we could surface some tangible aspects — real-life indicators and ingredients — of trust-building, rooted in both our personal and professional experiences. Here’s what we found:
Examples of Indicators
Being unafraid to show up as your true authentic self
I look at how we showed up today in this meeting as an indicator of trust. You know, I came in, cozied up. I’m not trying to fix my hair. I’m not worried about eating or drinking on camera. For me, it’s about being able to push norms that may otherwise stop me from being myself.
Abby
Being unafraid to share bad news, roadblocks or challenges
When I was in grantmaking, the ultimate vision of an authentic relationship with grantee partners was for us to hear from them when they ran into problems… for them to share news with us, even if it was bad, and know that we were in it for the long haul with them.
Dawn
I have helped a family fund develop its grantmaking program, and one of our grantee partners makes small grants to grassroots organizations. Over the years we have developed a relationship in which we can both share what we are grappling with, such as exit strategies and non-financial support, and we learn from each other. The trust goes both ways. It’s not unilateral.
Mary
Connecting with someone in a way that you couldn't before
There’s a board that I worked with years ago. In an effort to diversify their predominantly white, male and wealthy board, they brought in two women of color; and the group was really having a difficult time engaging with one another. After months of relationship-building work, I remember noticing that this one white male and a younger Native woman, who used to sit on opposite sides of the room from each other and avoid talking to each other, were sitting at the same table, laughing and connecting. It was a great snapshot of what trust-building can look like.
Dawn
As we swapped stories on trust-building and reflected on “the how,” we found that this work is largely about getting on the same page with one another and operating on the same footing. Here are some ingredients we explored together that support this.
Examples of Ingredients
Checking our own assumptions and biases
We each show up with unique knowledge and experiences that shape how we engage with others. We can’t possibly know exactly what experiences and information someone else is bringing – why they’re showing up the way they are, what’s on their minds – and yet it’s natural for us to make assumptions around it. I’ve found that pausing, checking my own assumptions and entering conversations with curiosity really helps to bring down those walls. And it helps to know the people you are in community with are working to do that too.
Aya
To add to that, I think a lot of times, sadly, there’s bias in our assumptions too. I think about the times when I’m uncomfortable or can’t open up to some people as easily as I can to others. Why don’t I have a lot of comfort or trust? What blindspots or biases might be impacting this? That’s where I’m personally trying to lean in and be more intentional, and I see it showing up across our racial equity work too.
Abby
Making space and time to develop shared understanding and meaning
A lot of the work we do as consultants is designing spaces to surface those assumptions and biases. With the board that I mentioned earlier, we used this ‘lifecycle exercise’ (thanks to Brenda Solorzano for bringing it to us!). In the exercise, we had each board member reflect on their childhood to the present and where they wanted to go in the future. Then we had them share with one another. It was almost magical to see people find common interests and backgrounds. They were really beginning to see each other in a new way like ‘wow, I didn’t know you grew up here, or how your life was.’
It was through sharing life experiences, demystifying who they were and breaking down barriers that they built trust over time.
Dawn
Having clear, shared goals
I think about memorandums of understanding — MOUs — in philanthropy, and sometimes a funder has a template that they present to a grantee…and a template is not mutual understanding, right? You’ve got to find a way to say, ‘Here are our mutual interests. You really want to get here, I really want to get here and we may have differences along the way but we know our general pathway. We know our goals.’
Dawn
Right. If it’s really a memorandum of understanding then everyone who’s involved in that memorandum should come together to create a common understanding that everyone has contributed to and can agree to. Although MOUs are usually boilerplate, lifeless documents, creating shared agreements helps everyone identify all the assets that people bring to the table, financial and non-financial, tangible and intangible. In that process, written agreements become valuable springboards for meaningful, living collaboration.
Mary
Examining the structures, norms and roles we're working within
When I look outside of philanthropy at other industries, I can think of structures that are put in place to reinforce and embed trust, but I’m actually not sure what that looks like in philanthropy yet.
I worked as a lawyer for 10 years, and in law, as an example, many people know that there’s client-attorney privilege where you can say anything to me, and I can’t talk about it to anyone, or I’ll lose my livelihood. There’s a legal structure that literally builds almost immediate trust because it puts the client and attorney on equal footing.
That structure or container that embeds equal footing, embeds a power balance, embeds trust…it doesn’t exist in philanthropy.
Dawn
There’s also something interesting about being frank and honest about the role of power imbalances. Sometimes power imbalance or hierarchy is needed, and that’s okay, as long as the goal is clear and shared. In construction, for example, when the goal is very clear — build a bridge that doesn’t fall down — a participatory process may not be the most efficient or effective approach to achieve your goal. But in more complex situations where the solution — or even the problem — isn’t clear, deeper collaboration is needed and this warrants a flatter, non-hierarchical structure…at least until there’s some more clarity. These complex situations are what communities and the philanthropies that support them face.
Abby
What both of you are saying makes me think of the difference between consensual and non-consensual hierarchies. Non-consensual hierarchies are vehicles for domination, but consensual hierarchies can be remarkably effective for collective work. Consensual hierarchies have to be negotiated from time to time in order to assure people are still in agreement with how power is shared.
Mary
Family structures with parents and children might be a good example of a consensual hierarchy. Hopefully, in most healthy families, children have eminent trust in their parents despite the power imbalance because they understand that their parents have their best interests at heart. As parents and children get older, the power imbalance shifts, but I know as a parent that my children have my best interests at heart as I age. So there’s a power imbalance at both ends of those generational shifts but there can still be ultimate trust.
And to bring it back to philanthropic structures, philanthropy tends to support funders having a much more in-depth understanding of grantee partners — their missions, who they serve, what their impact has been — than grantee partners do of funders. Grantee partners don’t typically have the opportunity to ask grantmakers, ‘Why are you giving? What are your interests?’ There’s no exchange that builds that sense of shared understanding, interest and meaning. So how do we build structures that make space for those conversations?
Dawn
As we broke down the ingredients of trust, we noted that building trust in philanthropy takes work on all levels — the individual, interpersonal, organizational and systemic or structural. It takes time and intention, and it really may just come down to a feeling. So the next time you wonder if your organization is doing trust-building "the right way," try doing a quick check-in with yourself and if you can, with the people around you. And trust that what you feel in your gut is an indicator in and of itself.
Dawn Chirwa and Abby Sarmac are Senior Advisors at The Giving Practice. Aya Tsuruta is the Marketing and Communications Lead at The Giving Practice. To learn more about our team, visit our team page here.
Mary Fifield is the Director of Grantmaking at Cotyledon Fund.
Brenda Solorzano (mentioned in Dawn's response above) is the Chief Executive Officer of the Headwaters Foundation.
