As America Turns 250, Philanthropy Must Earn the Public’s Trust
America is turning 250. It is a milestone worth celebrating, and also an opportunity to be honest about what has endured, what has frayed and what we are willing to repair. Trust in nearly every major American institution has eroded. Confidence in government, media, higher education, business and religious institutions has weakened across the board for years, often with good reason, but leaving communities skeptical of the organizations that claim to serve them.
In that vacuum, people often look to nonprofits and philanthropy for hope. They are closer to communities than government, more mission-driven than markets and more nimble than either. But if the philanthropic sector hopes to help rebuild confidence in American institutions, it has to start by acknowledging that good intentions are not enough. Nonprofits and funders have to demonstrate that their decisions are transparent, their work is effective and the people most affected by that work have a real hand in shaping it.
I have spent much of my life on both sides of philanthropy: writing the checks and chasing them. I have seen generosity change lives when it is guided by humility, urgency and respect for those it is meant to serve, as well as the organizations entrusted to do the work. I have also seen how easily assumed virtue can be mistaken for accountability, and how nonprofit and philanthropic institutions can replicate many of the same failures they aim to solve.
Americans expect institutions to demonstrate impact rather than simply assert good intentions. Donors want evidence that their contributions create measurable change, communities expect a meaningful voice in decisions that affect them and policymakers want proof that nonprofit partnerships deliver outcomes alongside compassion. If philanthropy is going to help rebuild trust in America, it cannot assume trust simply because its purpose is charitable. It has to earn trust the same way every other institution does.
The nonprofit sector is vast. Nearly two million organizations across the country reach virtually every part of American life, from healthcare and hunger relief to education, disaster response, the arts, civic engagement and faith communities. The sector collectively benefits from the powerful assumption that because an organization exists for the purpose of doing good, it must be doing good well. That assumption can also be dangerous.
Nonprofits can develop some of the same habits that have damaged confidence in other American institutions: they can become insular; they can be unclear about how decisions are made; they can protect their own structures more carefully than they examine their impact.
Trust breaks down in different ways across the philanthropic ecosystem. From the funder’s chair, it erodes when the strings attached to a check constrain an organization more than they enable it, or when donors refuse to fund the infrastructure that makes nonprofits more effective: technology, talent, financial systems and evaluation. From the operating chair, trust erodes when organizations chase restricted funding until their missions become distorted, or when leaders rely on goodwill instead of building the discipline to ask whether their work is actually working.
Philanthropy matters too much to be exempt from scrutiny. If the sector wants to help rebuild public trust, it has to be held to the same standard as any other institution with power, influence and responsibility.
I see this tension clearly in my work leading God’s Love We Deliver. The organization was founded in New York City during the height of the AIDS pandemic, when fear, stigma and neglect were as devastating as the disease itself. Too many people were left without the care and dignity they deserved. The original mission was straightforward: cook and deliver meals—and dignity—to people too ill to feed themselves.
That founding instinct—to show up, do the thing and treat people as if their lives matter—is still the organization’s moral center. But the organization’s continued evolution offers a broad lesson for the sector. As the needs of the community changed, the mission expanded beyond HIV/AIDS to serve people living with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other serious illnesses. Today, millions of medically tailored meals are delivered each year, treating food as a critical part of healthcare because the organization has remained responsive to evidence and the people it serves rather than treating its founding model as fixed. That evolution came from proximity, humility and the discipline to let the people we serve lead the way.
The lesson extends far beyond any one organization. Across the country, local nonprofits often see gaps in services before larger systems do. They know which families are falling through the cracks, which older adults are isolated, which patients are struggling after a diagnosis and which communities are not being reached by conventional approaches. That closeness is an asset and an obligation. It requires continually asking difficult questions: Who decides what communities need? Whose voices shape strategy? Who gets heard? And who is accountable when programs fail to deliver the intended outcomes? If the sector wants to help address America’s trust deficit, it has to ask those questions.
The relationships that make this work possible cut across every boundary. They are how trust gets rebuilt. Government brings reach, durability and public legitimacy. Philanthropy brings flexibility, experimentation and urgency. Businesses bring expertise, technology and investment. Community organizations and volunteers bring lived experience and human connection that can’t be replicated from the outside. When those relationships are built on mutual respect and shared accountability rather than transactional funding, people experience something they have long been hungry for: institutions that feel responsive, grounded in results and ultimately more human.
As America marks 250 years, it is tempting to frame falling civic trust as a national problem requiring national solutions. But that is not where the work gets done. Much of the repair work will happen close to where people live, through organizations that know their communities well enough to serve them honestly and are disciplined enough to remain accountable when they fall short.
The next chapter of American life will require more than commemoration. It will require stewardship of institutions, public trust, civic responsibility and one another. That work will not be done by the largest or most powerful. It will be done by the people who lead organizations humble enough to listen, honest enough to measure and committed enough to stay.
