Association trust is more valuable than ever

We have had a few conversations with association leaders recently that have ended up in much the same place.

The starting points were different. One was thinking about whether their organisation still carried the influence it once did. Another was working through what they could credibly say about their profession in a policy context. Another wanted to establish a trust benchmark to specifically measure performance against their strategic plan.

Around the same time, we were reviewing findings from a large piece of industry research we had recently completed. There was plenty in the data to talk about, but one result stood out: confidence in the industry had strengthened, despite a period in which it had been under considerable pressure. Trust had not simply survived a difficult period. It had increased.

That this all happened in the same week made it something we thought was worth paying attention to.

And it is a question the association sector itself is starting to consider more explicitly. Reporting from the ASAE Annual Meeting in the US this month, Associations Now identified trust as one of three main themes that stood out from the conference. ASAE has also launched an initiative called Trust Associations, built around the role of associations as reliable resources at a time when trust in institutions is under pressure.

Trust is concentrating.

There is no shortage of information available to members. If anything, the problem is the opposite.

Members are navigating economic uncertainty, changing regulation, new technology and an extraordinary volume of commentary about what all of it means for their work. AI has accelerated that again. Information is easier to produce, opinions are easier to publish, and confident answers are available almost instantly.

What is harder is knowing what, or who, to believe.

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer provides some useful context. Australia's overall Trust Index rose from 49 to 54 this year, moving the country out of distrust and into neutral territory. But underneath that improvement is a less settled picture.

The trust gap between high- and low-income Australians has widened to 19 points. Only 22% believe the next generation will be better off. And the broader findings suggest trust is increasingly concentrated in institutions and relationships that feel familiar and close.

So trust isn't disappearing. But it is concentrating.

Associations occupy a unique, and valuable, position.

They are not government, so they don't carry the same political baggage. And they are not simply another commercial provider, so their claims are less likely to be seen as a sales pitch. Associations are largely funded by the people and organisations they serve and exist to represent a defined community, often over many decades.

That does not automatically make an association trusted. But it gives associations something many other organisations have to work very hard to build: standing within a particular profession or industry.

In practice, that means when a professional body says a practitioner meets the standard, that a sector is short 300,000 workers, or that a proposed regulation will not work in practice, the claim lands for reasons that have little to do with marketing spend.

This is a commercially valuable asset.

A well-funded competitor can outspend an association on almost everything it does: content, technology, events, training and member communications. What a competitor cannot easily acquire is the standing to be believed by a profession.

AI makes trust more important, not less

We can see the need for trusted intermediaries particularly clearly in AI.

The University of Melbourne and KPMG's global study of trust in AI found Australians are among the most cautious populations surveyed. Only 30% believe the benefits of AI outweigh the risks, the lowest result of any country surveyed.

But perhaps the most interesting finding for associations is that 83% of Australians say they would be more willing to trust AI systems when assurance mechanisms are in place - things such as monitoring accuracy, responsible governance, human oversight, training and adherence to standards.

Providing assurance is what professional and industry bodies do.

Associations already set standards, develop professional education, interpret regulation, establish codes of practice, accredit programs and help members understand what good practice looks like.

As AI becomes embedded in professions, there is an opportunity to extend that role. When anyone can produce a confident-sounding claim, at almost no cost, the valuable thing is not necessarily more information. It is knowing what can be relied upon.

That is a serious argument for associations mattering more over the coming decade, rather than less.

Trust underpins the majority of what associations do.

An association's standing has practical value because so much of its work depends on other people accepting its judgement.

Advocacy is more effective when government believes the evidence you put forward. Qualifications have value when employers recognise the standards behind them. Professional guidance matters when practitioners regard the organisation issuing it as credible. And membership is easier to sustain when people believe the organisation understands their interests and acts on their behalf.

This is why we think trust deserves more attention from association boards. Trust is often treated as something intangible - important, but difficult to measure and hard to connect to outcomes.

In practice, however, it sits underneath a significant amount of what associations are trying to achieve.

Trust also needs to be protected, and measured

The way an association protects its trust is by protecting its members. That sounds obvious, and it often happens through relatively ordinary decisions.

Whether an association is prepared to challenge government when necessary; how consistently it applies professional standards; which commercial partnerships it accepts or declines; and how openly it responds when members are concerned about something. These decisions tell members something about what the association stands for.

This trust may take years to build, but members continually reassess whether it is deserved.

None of the organisations we spoke to had a baseline measure of trust in their organisation, and that is common.

Associations tend to measure member satisfaction, engagement, likelihood to renew and perceptions of value. All are useful measures. But they are not quite the same as understanding whether members regard the organisation as competent, credible and genuinely acting in their interests. A member can be perfectly satisfied with the events program and unconvinced that you would defend their interests when it matters.

For many associations, that distinction has probably not mattered very much in the past because trust has been relatively stable.

We are not sure that can be assumed anymore.

Which brings us back to those conversations we started with.

The result we saw in that recent industry research was a useful reminder that trust can strengthen even through difficult periods. Because the organisation had measured it, it also had evidence they can use to strengthen their advocacy that would otherwise have remained an assumption.

That feels particularly relevant now. Associations are operating in an environment of economic uncertainty, rapid technological change and an abundance of information that is increasingly difficult to assess.

There is an opportunity in that - but only if associations understand the trust they hold and what creates it.

Perhaps the first step is simply to measure it.

If you would like to have a discussion about how you can measure trust in your association, please reach out to Bec Sullivan at rsullivan@surveymatters.com.au. We are always happy to have an obligation free chat about how this can be done in your association.