Photo Credit: Ridin’ Buddy extraordinaire, Alison Duvall
There sure are a lot of people making money off the non-profit sector!
This revelation has dawned as I’ve begun researching how I can raise money for my therapeutic riding barn. As sure as tech loves algorithms, if I’m nosing around the topic, “Grant funding for…” then I am besieged by a bazillion newsletters, workshops, webinars, and free!!! downloads, all purporting to make fundraising so much easier.
I was particularly intrigued by one shop that was featuring a presentation on The Trust Equation, put forth in The Trusted Advisor by David H. Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford. This 25-year-old book (with updated anniversary edition) is posting on Amazon as I write this as the No. 1 bestseller in the consulting category.
The residual message is as follows: Trust is comprised of four factors: Credibility (do you have the skills and standing you claim you do?) Reliability (do you keep your word?) 
Intimacy (can you appropriately handle sensitive personal information?). As I read that list, I’m nodding along. If a doc is going to prescribe treatment for me, I want all three of those factors in place, but the critical factor is apparently number four.
In whose interests are you acting? If you have all the creds, you always show up and follow through, and you treat sensitive information respectfully, you can still blow the trust test by being blatantly self-interested. The doc who prescribes a course of treatment for me that just happens to occur over the next twelve months in their office, at the low, low price of half my retirement because insurance just doesn’t take snake oil and raspberry ketones seriously… I’ll get a second opinion.
If self-interest is a trust killer, I wonder how we are to navigate, in a society that keeps so many of us in scarcity situations, and saturates media and culture with scarcity messages, and exempts next to nothing (including very especially health care and higher/applied education) from profit motives.
The logical end point of a society focused on greed and scarcity is that neither people nor institutions can be trusted. Everybody–docs, teachers, lawyers, journalists, farmers, dog walkers, day care providers, architects, CPAs–has loans or credit cards to pay off, and if we don’t have loans breathing down our necks we have the prospect of an impecunious old age staring us in the face.
Even if people are motivated by genuine altruism, in an environment where greed is normalized and even applauded, we don’t trust altruism and good moral health when we run smack into them.
This is all very bleak, and yet, I still believe most people are honest most of the time, and there’s science to back me up on that. Especially if we’ve had a solid primary school education, we tend to have active shoulder angels and a sense of empathy for others.
And yet, I’ve been schnookered, by bosses, boyfriends, clients, even family members. My trust radar has let me down in some pretty serious ways. How do you know whom to trust? Does it matter who trusts you?
PS: Pre-order links are up for An Heir of Possibilities!
I never know whom to trust though their self-interest was a big component for me trusting others. For example, I never worried about someone else driving me because I figured they didn’t want to get in a wreck either. I’m also one of those people who always figured people were basically honest though it seemed to make me not only gullible but easy to spot. Once when working in a doctor’s office in my 20s, the parent of a new patient told me some things that I believed, only to reveal they were pulling my leg. And my slightly optimistic tendencies have been reinforced by my partner who is very optimistic and just assumes things will be okay. (I get to say “told you so” sometimes when he’s too optimistic.)
But, as I’ve gotten older it seems the world has changed and not for the better. So the percentage of pessimism about other people’s behavior is creeping up. All I can do is my due diligence when making decisions. I also deal a bit better with disappointments these days. I also don’t worry too much about other people trusting me because I’m not generally in any sort of position to affect the decisions of other people these days.
We sure do remember the times our trust was misplaced, don’t we? Makes think about whether any feels their trust in me was misplaced?
“Trust, but verify.”
Originally a Russian proverb, oddly enough!
I have trusted people that I shouldn’t have…I think as you age, gain experience and people smarts you learn who not to trust..
I have alot of friends…but, only a few that I trust.
I am known as a trust worthy person at work and among my family and friends. Most of the time, I can figure out who is being honest with me…most of the time.
I hope I’m better at spotting weasels in my garden. I have missed more than a few went it counted.
For me Trust and Intuition go hand in hand. Whenever I’ve made a decision disregarding my intuition that was subtly telling me that something or someone didn’t smell right, the consequences have always included some kind of learning about why I should have listened to my intuition and how my intuition was telling me that something was off in that situation.
Trust is something sacred. In our present world and AI, there’s nothing and no one I trust. I hope and keep my distance. Sad…
After my ex, I stopped trusting my trust sense. It’s always seemed to be more effort than it’s worth to lie & scam, but that doesn’t seem to stop the warped who hide amongst us.
Just file me somewhere between Cynical and Damaged. Sigh…
I expect to be disappointed. I don’t know when or how I developed that state of being but it appears to be a permanent state of being. I do the best I can to find people who have some sense of honor and when I do find them I try to make sure they know how much I value them. Just recently I realized that because I value my plumber I live in a somewhat shabby old house with an increasing amount of Gold Standard plumbing.
Go figure
there is so mjch I’d like to say on this topic. howerer due to hand surgery i csnnot type too much and my speaker and recorder system isn’t helpinat all. the one elementn in life we can all trust is the love of the ALMIGHTY or what name you give to the power. Remember the birds of the air?
Truly an important topic for our times. The online world, especially, is filled with “weasels” as you call them. Caveat emptor and caveat lector but happily not with you, Grace!
Trust is like faith. The vast majority of people I put my trust in are worthy of it. There is an occasional negative experience. I’d rather live life in the positive, trusting people from the start, than leaning to the negative from the get go. That road leads to stolen joy.
I like the saying in this neck of the woods, “trust everyone, but brand your calfs”
Your comment “where greed is normalized and even applauded” so aptly describes the state of our nation! It seems. To be the number one motivation for most people. No one gets truly wealthy without taking advantage of someone else. When my beloved dog had a cancerous tumor from her mouth, the vet who knew from the surgery that there is no hope for survival still did $500 worth of dental cleaning and $50 for a microchip when she already has one. The greed of the medical system sickens me both literally and physically.