America is celebrating the 250th anniversary of its birth. It is a milestone worth celebrating, and it is also an opportunity to be honest about what has held up, what has fallen apart, and what we are willing to fix. Trust almost every major American institution It has eroded. Trust in governmentThe media, higher education, business, and religious institutions Weakened in all areas For years, often for good reason, but leaving communities skeptical of the organizations that claim to serve them.
In this void, people often look to nonprofits and charities for hope. They are closer to communities than government, more mission-oriented than markets and smarter than either. But if the philanthropic sector hopes to help rebuild trust in American institutions, it must start by recognizing that good intentions are not enough. Nonprofits and funders need to demonstrate that their decisions are transparent, that their work is effective, and that the people most affected by that work have a real hand in shaping it.
I’ve spent most of my life on both sides of philanthropy: writing 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 charged with doing that work. I’ve also seen how easy it is to confuse supposed virtue with accountability, and how nonprofits and charities can repeat many of the same failures they aim to solve.
Americans expect institutions to demonstrate their influence rather than simply assert good intentions. Donors want evidence that their contributions create measurable change, communities expect to have a meaningful voice in decisions that affect them, and policymakers want evidence that nonprofit partnerships deliver results alongside compassion. If philanthropy will help rebuild trust in America, it cannot gain trust simply because its goal is charitable. It has to earn trust in the same way as any other institution.
The non-profit sector is vast. Nearly two million organizations across the country reach nearly every part of American life, from health care and hunger relief to education, disaster response, the arts, civic engagement and faith communities. The sector collectively benefits from the strong assumption that because an organization exists for the purpose of doing good, it must do good well. This assumption can also be dangerous.
Nonprofits may develop some of the same habits that have damaged trust in other American institutions: they may become insular; They may be unclear about how to make decisions; They can protect their structures more carefully than examine their impact.
Trust breaks down in different ways across the philanthropic ecosystem. And from the funder’s chair, it erodes when the constraints associated with the check constrain the 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 is eroded when organizations seek constrained funding so that their missions become distorted, or when leaders rely on good faith rather than building the discipline to question whether their work is actually working.
Philanthropy is too important to be exempt from scrutiny. If the sector wants to help rebuild public trust, it must be held to the same standards as any other institution with power, influence and responsibility.
I see this tension clearly in my work in leading the love of God that we communicate. 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 have been left without the care and dignity they deserve. The original mission was clear and straightforward: to cook and serve meals – and dignity – to people who cannot feed themselves because of their illness.
That founding instinct—show up, do the thing, and treat people as if their lives matter—remains the moral center of the organization. But the organization’s continued evolution offers a broad lesson for the sector. As community needs changed, the mission expanded beyond HIV/AIDS to serve people with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other serious illnesses. Today, millions of medically designed meals are delivered each year, and food is treated as an important part of healthcare because the organization has remained responsive to evidence and the people it serves rather than treating its founding model as static. This evolution has come from closeness, humility, and the discipline to let the people we serve lead the way.
The lesson extends beyond any single organization. Across the country, local nonprofits often see service gaps before larger systems do. They know which families are breaking down, which elderly people are isolated, which patients suffer after diagnosis, and which communities cannot be reached through traditional methods. This closeness is the basis and commitment. This requires constantly asking difficult questions: Who decides what communities need? Whose voices shape the strategy? Who listens? Who bears responsibility when programs fail to achieve the desired results? If the sector wants to help address America’s trust deficit, it must ask these questions.
The relationships that make this work possible transcend boundaries. They are how trust is rebuilt. Government brings access, durability and public legitimacy. Philanthropy brings flexibility, experimentation and urgency. Companies bring expertise, technology and investment. Community organizations and volunteers bring a lived experience and human connection that cannot be replicated from the outside. When these relationships are built on mutual respect and shared accountability rather than transactional finance, people experience something they have always longed for: institutions that feel responsive, results-based, and ultimately more human.
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, it may be tempting to portray the decline of civic trust as a national problem requiring national solutions. But that’s not where the work gets done. Much of the repair work will be done close to where people live, by organizations that know their communities well enough to serve them faithfully and are disciplined enough to take responsibility when they fall short.
The next chapter of American life will require more than mere commemoration. It will require institutional governance, public trust, civic responsibility, and each other. This work will not be done by the largest or strongest. This will be done by people who lead organizations that are humble enough to listen, honest enough to measure, and committed enough to survive.
