By Gwen Davis

For 16 years, public relations firm Edelman has conducted the global Edelman Trust Barometer survey on trust and credibility in leadership, according to the firm. This year, while overall trust has increased across all four sectors measured (government, business, media, nonprofits) reaching the highest levels since the 2008 recession, there are however signs of a concerning “trust gap” emerging between the informed public (top 15%) and the public at large, according to Edelman.

On Tuesday morning, professionals and community members came together for a formal brunch at Palace Ballroom downtown to have a conversation with state leaders who have their finger on the pulse regarding community trust.

Panelists included:
· Russell Dubner, U.S. President and CEO, Edelman
· Dow Constantine, King County Executive
· Ana Mari Cauce, President, University of Washington
· Maud Daudon, President and CEO of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce

Dubner gave an overview of the trust research. "Then we could leap into the discussion," he said. "We've been studying trust for 16 years now, in 1999 we noticed a shift in the power base between different institutions and we started studying the trust in these different institutions... We surveyed 30,000 people" across many different countries, he said.

"This year's theme is inequality of trust," he said. "Trust matters. Overall trust is rising."

However, when we look at income disparity, there is a 31 point gap between trust, he said. Overall, we also looked at optimism over the next five years, Dubner continued.

"One of our hypotheses is you have an inversion of authority," he said. "Today we see this inversion where the overall population has a lot of control" and are trying to cater to the general population, but now there's this trust gap.

People get their information from social media, he said, which can be self-selecting.

"In this we see opportunity for business, but ultimately we think of which institution is most apt for change... Having a global economy really comes from having an angle government," he said.

Technology is perhaps coming down off a peak. The financial industry is doing well. "What would make you lose trust is if your employees or the community aren't gaining," he said.

Overall, we have seen an uptick in employee [satisfaction] -- they hold just as much if not more swag than employers, Dubner noted.

"Owned media -- trust is going up pretty dramatically. If you're a part of institutions you want to hear from them, as if they're a media company. Yes, media is about traditional publishers in general, but also YouTube influencers and others have influence, as well," Dubner said.

Constantine was asked how he would bridge the trust gap within his government role.

"Historically, we've relied on competent media, but today there's fewer experienced journalists covering the work we are doing, and it lends itself to a couple things," he said. "The fact that anybody is able to communicate the work we're doing in whatever way they like, reinforces each other's biases instead of challenging their assumptions."

"Of course, the most outlandish things get the most clicks," he said. "Government is boring."

Constantine said that Sound Transit, for example has delivered complex projects that people are using. Part of it is because they are able to tell people what they're doing.

Metro, on the other hand, hasn't had that effective messaging advantage.

Cauce, regarding trust, said that communication is a challenge.

"How do you communicate to a large audience?" she asked. "One of the things we've been doing at the university, is we [started a different approach]. We invited our students in... I would sit down for two hours and talk about budget. They'd become informed. They could decide who they wanted to talk to, and then they were part of the budget conversations that I had to go to," she said.

"I think [they came to understand] that we needed to make choices, Cauce, said. "That model brought a lot of trust to the students."

There still are trust gaps, but it's less.

"Trust is up, but the gap is disturbing," she said. "That gap really indicates that people are worried about social mobility. Rising up is becoming harder and harder. That's where the gap here mirrors how people who are doing. For people who are doing well and feel the system is working for them have trust," she said and vice versa.

I think we need to be reinvesting in education, she concluded.

Daudon: "I think that trust is easer to regain on the regional scale rather than on the federal level", she began.

She talked about Starbucks as an organization that fosters trust. The CEO came from humble origins but now has a senior staff with a philosophy to really make a difference in the lives of people," she said.

"The Chamber's philosophy is [we need] a robust place where [business can build great companies. But we also need a great quality of life, which means we live in a beautiful place, and we can also not leave people behind," she said.

"We believe we have failed families with lower incomes," she said. "How do we do a good job at turning people toward the opportunities we have," she asked. "Our hope is to get on that soon, or else we will have missed the opportunity to make Seattle Seattle, and have a community that works for everyone. There are a lot of pathways to success and we need to plug everyone in."

With that, "we can really rebuild trust," she said. "I'm also delighted to see that trust in business has gone up."

Constantine was asked what businesses could do to enforce trust.

We've had the chance to work with nonprofits to sync people up with services, such as sighing people up for the Affordable Care Act, he said. "We signed up 10 percent of the county for health insurance, just about better than any jurisdiction in the country."

"We worked with our hospitals to reduce psychiatric boarding," he said. "That was from the hospitals and clinics saying, 'we want to solve this issue.'"

He also talked about communities needing to solve the heroin epidemic.

"Us working in communities is far [more efficient] than us working alone," he said. "We need to communicate this. We need the whole community to understand this work and cheer us all."

Cauce was asked about tuition woes.

"Our tuition has gone down," she said. "Almost a third of Husky students because of the Husky Promise pays no tuition.

"And it's not just tuition -- it's food, housing," she said. "We're working very hard to making sure we are accessible. The local picture is a little different than the national picture. I still do outreach across the state, because [those non-Seattle students] are the ones that are least likely to know about our no tuition."

"Students think it's out of reach, even though it's not," she said.

Panelists ended by talking about the presidential campaign and how it reflects the trust issues that are happening on the local level.