Stop Telling Me You Care. Show Me How You Know.
- Dr. Giulia R. Tufaro
- 60 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Why the way organisations communicate philanthropy now determines leadership credibility, trust, and resilience.
Trust has narrowed to historically low levels. In 2026, seven in ten people report being unwilling or hesitant to trust those with different values or information sources. Yet business remains the most trusted institution globally—not because it is liked, but because it is still perceived as capable. This trust, however, is conditional: renewed through explanation, not assertion.
In this climate, the way organisations communicate their philanthropy has become a proxy for leadership credibility. Most stakeholders will never read a grant agreement, attend a programme review, or sit in a governance meeting. They encounter corporate generosity as language: criteria, baselines, limits, methods, and learning. Communication is no longer the epilogue to responsible action; it is the action most people actually see.
Evidence supports this shift. CECP’s Giving in Numbers shows that companies embedding purpose into operations—not merely CSR—outperform peers financially. Regulatory and technical expectations reinforce the trend. From the EU AI Act to global risk and assurance frameworks, transparency, traceability, and comparability are now governance norms.
Philanthropy therefore functions as a rehearsal space for credible governance. It is one of the few areas where organisations can publicly demonstrate how they reason: how they define problems, set criteria, test assumptions, acknowledge limits, and correct course when evidence changes. Stakeholders read this discipline as evidence of maturity—well before they trust claims about innovation, transformation, or growth.
Across Europe, leading institutions are already shifting from sentiment-led storytelling to method-first communication. They publish criteria instead of celebration, timelines instead of slogans, baselines instead of highlights. The result is not colder communication, but clearer trust. Credibility compounds when organisations show their reasoning, not merely their intentions.
One principle endures:
Stop telling me you care. Show me how you know.Then show me what changed when the evidence did.
In an age where much organisational work—AI systems, risk decisions, governance trade-offs—remains invisible,
communication becomes governance in public.
Those who practise it with discipline build leadership credibility, strengthen institutional trust, and reduce perceived risk. Those who do not increasingly sound theatrical, even when their intentions are sincere.
This paper argues for a disciplined shift: from philanthropy communication as reputation management to philanthropy communication as evidence of leadership thinking. Organisations that make this shift will not only be trusted more; they will be better prepared to lead when the decisions get harder.
AUTHOR:
Francoise Jirgens is a strategic communication leader advising senior executives on clarity, credibility, and trust in complex organisational environments. Her work focuses on helping organisations articulate how they think—translating strategy, risk posture, and cultural intent into communication that strengthens stakeholder confidence.
She is the cofounder of Parteo, a strategic sustainability, communications, and transformation consultancy supporting organisations navigating change with intention and aligning purpose, narrative, and operational execution.
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