Trust is important but how to build it?

 

In one of our previous blogs, we highlighted on how trust is of paramount importance when it comes to donation, supporting NGOs and noble causes. Needless to say, picking up a genuine cause is as difficult as picking a needle from a sack. We are constantly living in a world where we are reminded to NOT trust blindly. 

I remember, once I was travelling in a bus and was talking to passengers as part of filling a survey (contents of that survey, purpose of the survey are long forgotten but not this incident). I was talking to one nice lady and she was helping me with good insights only she had to descent at the next stop and thus we were interrupted. Luckily for me, I noticed it was the same stop I had to get down at. While we were walking, she offered me to step in her house, since I didn’t sense anything fishy and THAT (gods knows, WHICH) survey was SO important, I readily stepped in her house where she offered me tea and we were happily chatting our way to complete that form. Meanwhile, dawn descended, my family became suspicious and my phone’s battery died! I was to stay at my aunt’s place that day. Since she was unable to reach out to me, she called my mother to check if I have reached there. This phone call disrupted the peace of my whole extended family.

I had called to inform my aunt of my late arrival as soon as I charged my phone at the stranger’s home, but it was not soon enough! I was reprimanded by my extended clan for - not charging my phone enough, stepping into a stranger’s house and having tea on top of it! My explanation “but she was a girl..” met deaf ears. “Never trust a stranger” I heard that line unanimously. I have been fed that formula since I was 6. I have only been slapped once in my life from my parents just because I happened to go to my neighbours’ house who had recently shifted here. She seemed nice and offered me chocolates. I was 5 or 6 then. My mother, unable to find me at our home, searched the entire society only to find me at a newcomers’ house and I was met with a tight slap in front of that aunty!

From 6 to 26, I am constantly reminded NOT to trust. I recently trusted one facebook seller with a 2k suit only to be coned eventually. Again, I was reminded NOT to trust STRANGERS. Amongst the hue and cry of being cautious, alert, how do we trust selectively? How do we decide to let our guards’ down? And most importantly, how do we support noble causes because nothing is STRANGER than NGOs (which seems to be fiction now) :

I read a formula on one of the websites. It says :

Where 

T is trust

C is perception of credibility (trusting what someone says)
R is perception of reliability (trusting what someone does)
I is Intimacy (trusting someone with our emotions)
S is Perception of self orientation (whether focus is on oneself or others)

Lower the S, more empathetic the person/organisation is and therefore trust increases. All other components are directly proportionate to Trust. But the question again comes, HOW to increase credibility and reliability.

All these components are a matter of transparency, research and OUR experience. That is why it is important to be invested in individuals, organizations to evaluate their actions vs their words. 

Interest can be very easily ignited basis the appearance, layout, packaging but TRUST is a long drawn process. 

Therefore NGO needs to be cherry picked and a cause needs to be invested in. There would be videos which might ignite our empathy immediately and we might end up donating few dimes. But this approach isn’t sustainable. We, at Urgesture, try to cover length and breadth of NGOs (leads to increase in credibility), their cause and the impact your donations make to them (leads to increase in reliability). Intimacy is a product of time and investment, that’s where we ask our donors and volunteers to be involved with us and we keep on trying news ways to be relevant as per times and sustain your attention (this blog is a way to do that 😉). SO, well that’s a component of curating genuine cases. You can find that blog at cherry-picking-of-ngos-by-ur-gesture

We truly believe causes shouldn’t be windowshopped (topic of next blog). Keep a tab on our pages, let the NGO gain your trust because we want you to be there with us in a long run. 

We are here to build your trust not interest.

 

 - Stuti Relan