Trust is our greatest asset. It provides the societal glue on which our democracy relies. Yet, as the Edelman Trust Barometer shows, trust in our institutions and in one another is at an all-time low. What can be done?
At the core of a democratic society with high levels of trust is the engaged citizen, “everyday” volunteers and givers who are active in community life. They join voluntary associations or support nonprofit organizations. They put coins in the collection plate or the Salvation Army kettle, support the local women’s shelter or mentorship program for struggling youth. They join a Divine Nine sorority, respond to the blood drive, volunteer for the Jewish Community Center or fire brigade. They are business leaders, schoolteachers, software engineers, and homemakers. They vote.
Long a source of stability, optimism, and agency, engaged citizens take part in public forums for solving shared problems or stewarding community resources. The spaces they create and occupy are where democratic decision-making is practiced, collective action is taken, and literal and metaphorical bucket brigades are mobilized. Their active participation in society builds trust, community, and the capacity to self-govern.
But as social ties have weakened, the number of everyday givers and volunteers has dwindled. Research shows that year over year, more funds have been given — but by fewer givers. And rates of volunteerism have shrunk to an all-time low of 25 percent.
These giving trends may simply reflect the concentration of wealth and growing middle class precarity in the years following the Great Recession. But might the decline in volunteering suggest a corresponding concentration of “agency”— that sense that what you do matters in our society? And if so, what might that mean for our democracy, which depends on citizen engagement?
While the decline in everyday engagement was the canary in the coal mine, offering a profound signal of the loss of trust captured in Edelman data, research supported by the Generosity Commission, which I co-chair, shows that increases in such engagement offers a solution. Volunteering time or treasure engenders a sense of what scholars call individual “connectedness.” And that connectedness not only leads to ever more generosity, but a more resilient society, a robust democracy.
We need not be wealthy or well-connected. We can all play a role — and do.
