Public trust is crucial to charities’ work, but its roots now reach beyond financial accountability.

It’s long been agreed that charities are good at building trust. Research across Scotland and the wider UK consistently demonstrates strong public trust in the sector.

But when it comes to how charities build and maintain trust, the position is more fluid. In a shifting landscape of regulation and public expectations, how do you make sure your own approach to winning trust is future-fit?

The public are changing

Back in 2022, a key marker of trust among the public was knowing how much of a donation goes to a cause, according to OSCR’s Scottish Charity Survey.

Skipping forward to 2026, things look more complex. The Charity Commission’s latest Public Trust in Charities report for England and Wales suggests that the public has moved from a “narrow focus on financial efficiency towards a broader expectation that charities demonstrate purpose, relevance and outcomes”.

In other words, trust now involves more than simple financial accountability. It’s about impact.

Impact and transparency

The importance of impact is reflected in the new Charities SORP (Statement of Recommended Practice). Applicable to financial periods starting on or after 1 January 2026, it introduces a requirement for charities to report on their impact and demonstrate how their funds directly benefit users and communities.

If your board has so far viewed compliance with the new SORP as a tick-box exercise, just another regulatory obligation to contend with, you’d be missing a great opportunity to build trust.

Effective impact reporting can help you tell your story more authentically and convincingly to beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, communities and others. When your annual trustees’ report and accounts are often the first port of call for anyone researching your charity, it’s an ideal showcase for demonstrating your value.

The other key element of building trust in your annual reporting (and other storytelling) is transparency. It’s an opportunity to set the record straight on why you took specific decisions, why certain incidents occurred, what you’ve learned from them, and what you’ve put in place to address any issues arising from them.

Go beneath the surface

Crucially, when we talk about these changes in reporting, we’re not just talking about a communications exercise. Trust and confidence must be embedded deep within your charity. For example:

  • To show impact – as opposed to activity – may require a step change in how you plan, deliver, monitor, and measure everything you do and achieve.
  • Transparency may require culture change. Leaders, employees, and volunteers must understand what it means in their own role, and how to make it work in a fishbowl of social media and increasing public scrutiny.

Help is available

In our Charities and Third Sector team at Lindsays, we work with charities of all sizes to introduce fit-for-purpose governance, reporting, and culture.

By doing so, we help them not just to comply with regulation but also to build trust – which in turn underpins donations, grants, volunteering, and other support.

In a landscape where so many charities feel under pressure, trust is more powerful than ever.