This is part IV of a four-part series exploring the nature of the trust apocalypse and what we can do about it:
While no single solution can address every dimension of this crisis, unleashing human innovation will be one common ingredient.
Yet turning this innovative spirit into tangible progress requires more than ideas alone; we need innovators and entrepreneurs united by the higher purpose of preserving for our children and grandchildren communities and institutions worthy of their trust.
Likewise, we need the best academics and intellectuals to analyze the complexities of this quintessentially wicked problem and point the way ahead. Notably, psychologist Jonathan Haidt has extensively studied the impact of social media on children’s mental health, connecting increased screen time with rising rates of depression and anxiety among teens. Haidt exemplifies how research-driven insights can spark tangible changes by raising awareness of social media’s detrimental effects and advocating for reforms — such as phone-free school policies and minimum age requirements. His work underscores the critical role that scholars, policymakers, and communities must collectively play in restoring trust in our evolving digital world.
And finally, we need to align the necessary relationships, expertise, and capital behind civic and trust-building innovation. As Tim Berners-Lee wrote at the end of his open letter:
“...there is a need, an urgent need…to back the morally courageous leadership that is rising, collectivise[sic] their solutions, and to overturn the online world being dictated by profit to one that is dictated by the needs of humanity.”
Building a Catalytic Community
A key element in catalyzing large-scale change will be forming an interconnected network of stakeholders to pool diverse perspectives, expertise, and resources, united by a common higher purpose — a “catalytic community.”
Post 9/11, General Stan McChrystal, as commander of the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), experienced how quickly changing environments can undermine traditional hierarchical approaches. In his book Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, McChrystal recounts how, in fluid, decentralized conflicts, a rigid chain of command fails to adapt and share information effectively.1 Instead, he advocated for a network of autonomous teams (a network of networks) bound together by a common vision and shared situational awareness. By empowering individuals across ranks and fostering horizontal connections, decentralized teams made quicker decisions and adapted more quickly to new threats. The result was operational and specific: JSOC went from 18 raids a month in August 2004 to 300 by August 2006, dismantling al-Qaeda in Iraq's network.
Likewise, in his book Impact Networks: Create Connection, Spark Collaboration, and Catalyze Systemic Change, David Ehrlichman underscores the power of decentralized collaboration to achieve collective impact.2 In the networks highlighted by Ehrlichman, diverse actors aligned around a common cause yet retained the autonomy to innovate and respond in real time. This approach recognizes that solutions to systemic issues require broad engagement, cross-sector partnerships, and agile coordination — attributes that formal organizations alone often struggle to provide.
By synthesizing these insights with respect to the Trust Apocalypse, we can envision a catalytic community comprised of three essential elements:
Thinkers: The scholars and framework-builders who study how trust breaks and how societies change.
Doers: Community organizers on the front lines, technologists building trustworthy systems, public servants open to new approaches, and the people building new forms of media.
Resource Allocators: Connectors, experts, and investors who channel relationships, expertise, and capital into promising initiatives, ensuring that transformative ideas receive the support they need to grow.
When these groups collaborate as part of a network of networks — uniting rigorous understanding, practical craft, and committed resources — they can generate a virtuous cycle of rapid learning and adaptation. Over time, this community becomes self-catalyzing: new ideas are examined by those who study the problem, tested by those doing the work, and funded to reach broader scales. In turn, the community’s successes reinforce trust, drawing in more collaborators inspired by tangible progress, creating an environment where solutions can emerge organically and spread rapidly, rekindling the trust that has eroded in many parts of our society.
Epilogue
Catalytic communities don’t spring into existence fully formed. They cannot be created from the top down or emerge unbidden from the bottom up. They need a spark — an instigator to call together a small cadre of committed individuals bound together by a shared higher purpose. Most begin as simple information-sharing networks where members gradually get to know one another, establish credibility, and build trusted relationships. Only when trusted connections have taken hold do these networks transition into action-oriented communities.
Drawing on David Ehrlichman’s work in Impact Networks, we can see how successful networks evolve through stages: from initial connection and relationship-building to the co-creation of shared goals and strategies, and ultimately to a phase of sustained, widespread collective action (a catalytic community). At every step, participants must cultivate empathy, open communication, and adaptive leadership — qualities that help a network overcome inevitable friction and maintain a sense of shared purpose.
Spark of Trust seeks to serve as this catalytic spark — convening the thinkers, doers, and resource allocators already at work restoring trust in what is true, in our institutions, and in each other. Like most catalytic communities, it begins as an information-sharing network: the Spark of Trust podcast and newsletter bring forward the builders already repairing trust — people largely invisible to one another and to the public — and connect their work to the larger picture this paper has drawn. Visibility first; connection next; collective action as trust takes hold. How a catalytic community takes shape — and what it takes to ignite one — is the subject of this paper’s companion, Building a Catalytic Community.
Whether you are an academic exploring the deeper drivers of societal change, an entrepreneur building a new platform or service, or a funder looking to back transformative ideas, there is a place for you here. By adding your skills, insights, or resources, you become part of a collective effort to restore trust and preserve for our children and grandchildren communities and institutions worthy of their trust.
“It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”
— Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot 2:16
Stanley McChrystal et al., Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (Portfolio, 2015)
David Ehrlichman, Impact Networks: Create Connection, Spark Collaboration, and Catalyze Systemic Change (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2021)