Last month’s Trust in Practice Summit in Chicago, hosted by the Aspen Institute Alliance for Social Trust and Allstate, provided a balm for an era defined by persistent anxiety and, for some, nihilism. The Summit celebrated nonprofit leaders who build trust in communities by solving real problems and directly improving lives.

I attended to learn from practitioners who are on the ground in communities across the United States, hoping to apply those lessons in our work with corporate leaders interested in building trust across society. Inspiration and evidence of progress was everywhere: an organization helping Uvalde, TX heal from a horrifying elementary school shooting, an advocate for her Indigenous tribe’s interests in Arizona, economic development leaders strengthening communities in Appalachia, among many others.   

The Trust in Practice Summit makes a strong case that trust is best built at a local level. Plenty of research supports this view. For years, Edelman’s Trust Barometer has found that respondents trust their own employer far more than they trust business in general. Trust Barometer respondents trust their CEO more than they trust CEOs in general, and they trust their co-workers more than they trust executives further up the chain. Meanwhile, Pew has found that by “more than two-to-one (56% to 26%), Americans say their local elected officials are doing a good job,” even when trust in Congress is at historic lows. When it comes to trust, proximity clearly matters.

With both a compelling theory and powerful examples of trust building and problem solving at a community level, it is tempting to believe that the decades-long trend of declining trust in the US is ending. Unfortunately, a persistent trust recession lingers. Edelman describes a new “retreat into insularity” driven by a lack of trust in societal institutions and anxiety over the future. While speaking to many inspiring community-level leaders, I learned that their work is getting harder, not easier.

Clearly local trust-builders can’t solve our current trust crisis on their own. Many of the problems they are addressing at the local level—economic dislocation and anxiety, political disempowerment, declining health, and environmental damage—are caused by larger systemic failures. Reducing those failures at the source is a task for society’s systemic actors, including corporations.

Mixed Incentives for Corporate Leaders to Prioritize Trust

Corporate leaders have expressed concern about trust for a long time. Edelman has released its Trust Barometer to business and the global economic elite at Davos since 2001. Despite this 25-year ritual, trust in the institutions of government, media, NGOs, education, and systems of democracy and capitalism are at or near all-time historic lows.

During this time, business leaders articulated a range of business rationales to be concerned about declining trust: it would invite greater government regulation, challenge their license to operate, impede their ability to hire and retain the best talent, and hamper innovation. The problem seems to be that corporate leaders have seen a stronger business case to make choices that, intentionally or not, continue to erode trust.

Another uncomfortable truth is that as trust in other institutions has declined, corporate influence on society has grown. Social media companies have replaced traditional (trusted) sources of news and information and transformed everyday social interactions into the most sophisticated and profitable advertising businesses in history. Corporations won new rights to fund and influence elections. Globalization empowered companies to shop for lower-cost labor pools and favorable tax domiciles.

In light of these trends, it is fair to wonder whether corporate leaders will ever have a strong enough business incentive to prioritize trust. But pressure is mounting. Citizens and employees are pushing back on AI deployment and buildout. Voters in both political parties are demanding dramatic policy change and looking at corporate power skeptically. In extreme cases, business leaders now even contend with threats of violence, recently underscored by an attack on the home of Open AI CEO, Sam Altman, and the tragic murder of United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson in 2024.

A Crossroads for Corporate Leaders

Some prominent business leaders are sounding alarms about trust that we haven’t seen in the last 25 years. Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio has warned of the rising threat of civil war. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has warned that US political rhetoric is eroding trust among US allies and trading partners. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently warned that the American Dream is “slipping out of reach for too many people” and undermining trust in the idea that hard work pays off.

Are corporate leaders concerned enough to act differently?

If so, if incentives change or a mindset shift takes place, corporate leaders will find abundant opportunities for choices that help build rather than erode trust. Change may show up as a company that prioritizes community input and buy-in before building a data center, or leaders rethinking how they improve the internal fairness of pay from their frontline workforce to the C-suite so that employees and their communities feel like they are getting their fair share. A CEO may choose to reevaluate the ways their lobbying and political spending impact how citizens feel about the trustworthiness and competence of government. The bottom line is that corporations can do much more to ensure that citizens trust that they live in a system that benefits them.

Trust-building is a skill set, and corporate leaders could learn a lot from experts at the local level.  Throughout the Trust in Practice Summit, listening, collaboration, and good judgement about when to defer to local expertise repeatedly emerged as keys to solving critical problems. And corporations have compelling advantages as systemic trust builders. They have resources, convening power, relationships, and influence. They have workforces that, data suggests, trust each other and are connected to the communities where corporations operate.

Important pieces are in place to reverse the current trust recession, if corporations are willing to lean in. Doing so would be a powerful step toward reversing the polarization, grievance and political uncertainty that seems to be holding back so many communities and the economy.