A new survey finds that Americans’ trust in nonprofits remains high, suggesting they can play a meaningful leadership role around oft-divisive matters such as politics and new technologies.

Independent Sector’s Trust in Nonprofits and Philanthropy report, released last week, is based on a survey of 3,000 U.S. adults conducted in April. Overall, 56 percent of Americans say they trust nonprofits to do the right thing, in line with last year’s survey (57 percent), and well ahead of other institutions such as the military (44 percent), news media (19 percent), corporations (19 percent), and the federal government (17 percent).

“Trust in nonprofits saying steady is itself an achievement in an era when trust overall seems to be dropping,” said Dr. Kevin Miller, director of research and policy analysis at Independent Sector.

The report did find one substantial shift, with trust in philanthropy dipping from 33 to 29 percent. “That seems to be driven mostly by a drop in trust in high-net-worth individuals engaged in philanthropy—the Warren Buffetts and so on,” Miller said. “There’s just an increasing concern in the American public anywhere that large amounts of money and power accrue.”

The survey attempted to determine whether that trust can translate into political and technological influence. 

Nonprofits were cited by 27 percent of respondents as an institution “best equipped to reduce divisions in the U.S.,” slightly ahead of others in the local community (26 percent) and the federal government (22 percent). And at least a third of Americans said they trust nonprofits to provide voting information and advocate around policies and funding. As one respondent said in the report, “[Nonprofits] have the potential to restore trust. They are the ones that directly interact with the community and so they understand what policies are more urgent than others to be passed.”

Respondents were more torn when it came to nonprofits and AI. Overall, 37 percent of Americans said they were less likely to trust nonprofits that use AI, but trust increases substantially among those who use AI themselves. But both groups strongly agree that nonprofits should be clear about when and how they use the technology. 

“Transparency is critical in general for nonprofits, and we think it’ll remain important as a value and as a best practice when it comes to AI use as well,” Miller said.

In future research, Miller said, Independent Sector wants to look more deeply into how nonprofits can most effectively make use of the goodwill they’ve established with the public.

“One of the things that we have been trying to get at is what nonprofits can do with trust,” he said. “We’re the most trusted sector in the United States, but we want to think harder about what that means in terms of our ability to make change, and in terms of our ability to serve communities. Does that high trust translate into trusting us to lead on new topics, for things like AI? If there’s a new trend, a new technology, is there a role for nonprofits to lead or inform in a way that maybe government or corporations would have trouble doing?”