Trust and credibility – THE biggest challenges in our society right now?

April 30, 2010

I watched the political leadership debates on TV because I wanted some real information. I’m an undecided voter and want to be convinced by policies and not rhetoric. I would like to trust that whoever wins the election will actually make good on their promises.

In other words, I’m looking for credibility. Not just in what is said, but in what is actually delivered when it comes to the crunch.

And it appears I’m in good company. In the first debate, one of the largest positive spikes on the tracking graphs measuring the audience’s reaction was recorded when the subject turned to actually doing something positive about earning the trust of the UK public.

We see this need for trust and credibility mirrored right across the third sector and highlighted in many different ways. For example, nfp Synergy’s Charity Awareness Monitor results from November 2009 reported that 34% of respondents believed small charities are more trustworthy than large charities. The same survey reported that 51% of people thought large charities were often ‘wasteful in how they spend their money’, as opposed to only 6% for small charities.

Conversely, larger charities are perceived as more professional than their smaller counterparts.

So, whilst the charity sector overall is still trusted more than many commercial sectors, these findings do show that even we have a credibility gap between the public perceptions of what we stand for and what they perceive we actually do. And credibility is what gives us the right to ask for money, support, time etc.

Here are five steps which I think communications teams can take to help build credibility:

Actions		Examples / How
1.	As often as possible, let your outcomes do the talking for you. Just telling people you are credible won’t have anywhere near the same effect as showing them that you are.	Arthritis Care uses the feedback from attendees to build credibility for its young person’s support programme. The videos are hosted on relevant pages of the website and referred to across all programme communications to evidence the positive outcomes.
2.	Be selective. Deliver only the most powerful (or relevant) of these outcomes messages consistently across all media, channels and other appropriate communications opportunities. Don’t confuse the communications landscape by trying to deliver too many messages at once.	Time-box messages like you would a campaign and focus on gaining maximum impacts across traditional media, social media and via as many of your existing communication channels as possible.For example, I volunteered as a speaker for Cancer Research UK and was kept updated on the latest campaigning outcome-derived messages that I needed to include in my presentations to reinforce the charity’s overall communications efforts.
3.	Be very persistent in trying to generate coverage and support for your core messages. When you are utterly bored with hearing them, you are only about halfway there – your target audiences have other things to think about and will need MUCH more reinforcement before they believe you are credible.	Using social media and your existing network of supporters to build a ground-swell is hugely useful; if a journalist sees how popular an issue is from some basic online research, they are more likely to consider engaging with you about it.
4.	Make the link between positive outcomes and your intervention bloody obvious and irrefutable!	I like Make-A-Wish Foundation’s use of videos to show the wishes they grant for children with life-threatening conditions. No fundraising asks, no corporate info, no internal focus. It’s all about the outcome they help bring about. These videos are used across as many streams of communications as possible.
5.	Keep track of your progress	Conduct surveys amongst your target audiences (remember it’s their opinion that counts) to measure your credibility. Subscribe to third party sector surveys if this is easier, like nfpSynergy monitors.

Kevin Baughen is the founder of Bottom Line Ideas

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