(MENAFN- PRovoke) CHICAGO - As trust in global institutions wanes, local ones are rebuilding it by staying rooted in their communities and focused on real, day-to-day impact.

That idea framed a PRovoke Media Global Summit conversation moderated by Edelman executive vice chair Matthew Harrington, who opened the session by noting that“trust lives locally” in the people and institutions closest to everyday life.

Two Chicago leaders - Chevy Humphrey, president and CEO of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, and Juan Salgado, chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago - shared how proximity and presence shape trust in practice.

Salgado said that while public confidence in higher education has declined, community colleges fare better because they meet people where they are.“Trust is built where one human being is meeting the needs of another,” he said.“That's what we do.”

He added that trust is highest among those who have completed college, reinforcing the need to make education more accessible and affordable.“At the end of the day, you've got to make sure the value proposition is there, that as a result of this degree you're actually going to have a better life.”

That same principle underpins City Colleges' Food Security for Life initiative with the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which brings free grocery markets and grab-and-go snacks to campuses serving more than 70,000 students.“More than half our students experience food insecurity,” Salgado said.“Some institutions avoid the survey because they don't want to know but listening is the hard part, and it's how you build trust.”

Humphrey described a similar approach to rebuilding connection at the museum, which saw attendance drop from 3.5 million to about 1.5 million visitors after the museum began charging admission in the early 1990s. Joining during the Covid pandemic, she held more than 1,000 virtual meetings to hear directly from Chicagoans about what they needed from the museum.

“I literally wrote down everything people said we could improve on and handed it to our strategic planning consultant,” she said.“Our next strategy had to be based on community voice.”

That feedback led to a long-term plan to make the museum more accessible, including creating free public spaces throughout its 1.4 million-square-foot building and, ultimately, restoring full free admission.“You've got to set big goals,” Humphrey said.“This is going to be hard, but this is what the community needs, and this is how we build trust.”

Both leaders said that credibility also depends on internal alignment in living the same values inside their institutions that they promote outside them.“If you don't have those values of trust and service inside your organization, one person can't do it alone,” Humphrey said.

The conversation also turned to technology and education. City Colleges has launched an associate degree in AI and machine learning, supported by partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and IBM, and is working with Accenture on apprenticeship programs that place students directly into paid, yearlong jobs.

The Griffin Museum, meanwhile, is collaborating with major tech companies on exhibits designed to teach critical thinking, showing visitors how to distinguish fact from fiction in an AI-driven world.

For both leaders, the work of trust goes beyond programming. Salgado spoke about expanding mental health and counseling services and confronting inequities affecting students and their families. Humphrey reflected on the role of cultural institutions in helping people make sense of their world.

“What keeps me up at night is how we help the next generation make sense of the world around them and whether we're doing enough to support our community," she said.

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