Businesses are more trusted to be ethical than NGOs

NGOs are now less trusted than companies to behave ethically. So says the latest Edelman Trust Barometer, which measures the public’s faith globally in society’s most important institutions.

The Barometer, which has been updated annually for more than 25 years, has never before put business ahead on ethics, by a net score of 29 points to 25 among higher-income people surveyed, and 11 points to 10 among those with lower incomes.

NGOs could be forgiven for finding this a particularly puzzling year in which to lose a lead they have held for so long. Business has not shown its most ethical face lately, backsliding on commitments such as reducing carbon footprints and promoting workforce diversity. In the US, in particular, leading firms have kowtowed to a president not known for his ethics, and done deals with government on terms outside usual ethical norms.

NGOs have also faced sustained attack from the populist right, which is happy to generalise from particular instances of ethical failure and use misinformation to discredit them.

The term “NGO” hasn’t helped either, as it lacks a clear definition and bundles together a wide range of quite different organisations, ranging from big global charities to local community services and activist groups.

However, NGOs should not blame their relative trust decline entirely on others. There are some bad apples; even among critics of recent cuts to international aid, no one has expressed much sympathy for the international NGOs that squandered too much money in the past.

Even the most ethical NGOs are generally poor at telling the public what they do and what difference they make. Good comparative data is scarce, especially on performance. If they can do better at proving that they make a positive impact, NGOs may soon regain their ethical edge over business.

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