Prof. Dr. Georg von Schnurbein

Democratic societies value the benefits of group representation, but these groups also increase the potential for factionalization. Operating charities and foundations plays a valued role in representing differing opinions and needs; however, public trust in charities has decreased over recent years in many countries, as has public opinion of government. Meanwhile, interest in charitable regulation and accountability is increasing. Why are public-serving organizations trusted so little?This project utilizes four unique country contexts (Canada, the U.K., Switzerland, and the U.S.) to map and understand cross-sector opinions on trust and accountability. Though these four countries have much in common, there is significant variation in regulatory approach, interpersonal trust, and popular sentiment toward public-serving institutions. This effort focuses on the mutual perceptions of four audiences: operating charities, foundations, charity regulators, and the public.The study has two phases. In the first phase, each country team will conduct an extensive document review to create historical-institutional profiles, including the scope of the nonprofit sector (as in Salamon) and relevant socio-cultural norms such as institutional trust toward the nonprofit, private, and public sectors. This will be supplemented by inter- and intra-country studies using existing public datasets (such as the World Values Survey) to test and expand on the country profiles. In the second phase, teams will convene focus groups to gather novel data. These focus groups will represent the four audiences, and will discuss their perceptions of themselves, the other audiences, trust, and the role of regulation. Analysis will include both single- and mixed-audience groups.