When communities lead, trust grows

Residents of Buckhannon, West Virginia, didn’t set out to transform their community. They just wanted to build a boat dock in their local park.

But that first project led to more. They cleaned up the park. More people got involved. Someone suggested the town could use a stage; they built that too, and it became a bandstand that now hosts Friday concerts. People turned to tougher problems like improving the local water system and tackling other infrastructure needs. Today, Buckhannon holds monthly open gatherings where residents can propose a fix for a community problem and receive a small grant to address it.

Buckhannon is one of dozens of communities supported by the Trust for Civic Life, a funder collaborative that invests in community-led efforts helping residents connect, participate, and work together on local priorities. The organization is testing a hypothesis: When residents come together around shared challenges, they build trust in one another and in local institutions — and that trust, over time, can help strengthen democratic culture.

The Trust for Civic Life focuses on rural America — a place one in five Americans call home — with a focus on the Black Belt, Central Appalachia, Tribal Lands, and the Southwest Border. These are regions that philanthropy has often overlooked and underestimated.

“Rural regions may look resource-scarce, but they have something many places don’t: high levels of social trust,” said Charlie Brown, Executive Director of the Trust for Civic Life. “Americans living in rural communities know how to do a lot with a little, and that means relying on each other across differences. When the power goes out, you’re going to knock on your neighbor’s door even if you disagree about politics, and they’re going to help you.”

Before launching in 2024, the Trust for Civic Life spent time in 60 communities across the country listening to residents describe what a vibrant civic life looked like where they lived. That listening shaped its approach: flexible funding for community-led problem-solving, built around what residents said they needed.

At the center of the Trust for Civic Life’s work are civic hubs — local organizations that bring residents together around shared priorities, create opportunities for people to get involved, and provide resources to help community efforts succeed. The organization has invested in 46 civic hubs, including community foundations, arts organizations, and development corporations, with another $8M in new total new grants awarded to 20-25 civic hubs in July 2026. It also directs about one-fifth of its funding to small grants for everyday activities that strengthen civic life such as library programs, block parties, and public gardens.

In Chinle, Arizona, a two-stoplight town of fewer than 4,000 people in the heart of the Navajo Nation, one civic hub began with a group of parents who noticed the only playground in the area was at the local Burger King. That effort grew into Chinle Planting Hope, which now organizes civic activities across the community. In its first year, the organization facilitated over 200 activities, including 75 bookmobile events, 40 solar installations for families living without electricity, and a volunteer program that distributed 300 food boxes to elderly residents. Chinle Planting Hope estimates that more than two-thirds of participants had previously been disconnected from community life.

“You can have two people who are very different, and who vote for very different things, but they can still be interested in working on something together,” said Amber Drinen, Chinle Planting Hope Program Coordinator. “We knew people wanted to give back and we wanted to create more opportunities for them to do that.”

The Trust for Civic Life is also studying what works and why. A 2024 survey of residents across eight rural communities, conducted with the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, found that taking action together builds trust, agency, and belonging. The survey also found that trust in local institutions was consistently high across every region surveyed, even as trust in national institutions remained low. The organization is also helping expand the work of Indiana University’s Observing Civic Engagement Lab, which embeds local observers directly in the communities where civic hubs work, attending meetings and local events to observe how civic culture actually forms.

“Through our support for the Trust for Civic Life, the Hewlett Foundation is helping build the trust between neighbors, and between communities and their institutions, that a strong civic and democratic culture depends on,” said U.S. Democracy Program Officer Robin Stone.

In places like Buckhannon and Chinle, that work shows up in parks, playgrounds, concerts, and community meetings, and in the growing belief among residents that they can work together to shape what comes next.