The Public's Trust in Nonprofit Organizations: The Role of Relationship Marketing and Management

This article connects the impairment of the public's trust in nonprofit organizations to managerial actions in five transactions that lie at the core of the relationship between the nonprofit and the public. For each core transaction it asks: What does the public trust mean? How may that trust be impaired by managerial action? What concepts in a relationship-marketing message might help restore that trust? What are the conditions or antecedents that might materially modify the results of any of these messages? This article offers important lessons to help clarify, manage, and restore the public's trust in nonprofit organizations when that trust is impaired by managerial action.