There is an African proverb that goes ‘he who does not trust enough, will not be trusted.’ The word ‘trust’ is sometimes used in philanthropy to describe relationships between donors and their grantees. From the donors’ perspective, the relationship begins with normalized suspicion. Trust is often something that needs to be earned through a process that can include complicated applications and reporting schedules and documents, where external agendas are often in conflict with what the local community or grantee desires; a general lack of appreciation of the unique complexities local leaders and communities navigate daily. Instead of inspiring curiosity and understanding towards community realities, it instead breeds mistrust.

This is a classist attitude rooted in the idea that poor people cannot be trusted, and it creates an uncomfortable reality where competition for funding and donor attention breeds divisions amongst local organizations. This behavior, akin to the divide and rule strategy used in the colonial days, has done little to advance change or any real development over the past 70 years. When grantees sense the mistrust, they throw on their mistrust amour, but donors rarely pause to ask if their grantees trust them too.

Read the full article about building trust and community by Ese Emerhi and Eshban Kwesiga at Feedback Labs.