Templeton Proposal Information

In this section, please provide us with brief answers to the questions below. If you are invited to submit a full proposal, you will be given the opportunity to provide more detailed responses as part of a full proposal submission.

Project Title

Please provide the official project title or a brief descriptive phrase on the proposed project; for example, "Website and Newsletter for Young People Gifted in Mathematics and Science" or "Foundational Questions in Physics & Cosmology" (Please limit your project title to 150 characters including spaces and punctuation. The first example provided above contains 73 characters and the second example contains 45 characters.)

The Sources of Trust in Social Relationships

Project Description

Tell us more about the program or project for which you are seeking support. What will it accomplish? Why is it important? Who will be involved? What are the anticipated outcomes? What will be its enduring impact? Please note: If you are invited to submit a full proposal, you will be provided the opportunity to update the project description and provide more detail on your funding request (Please limit your project description to 7,500 characters, or approximate 3 typed pages.)

Why is it important? Trust is a crucial element of social behavior. No one would act in a cooperative fashion if they didn't trust other people not to take advantage of them. Civilization and the free market economic system wouldn't operate if not for trust.

"Big" emotions like love or patriotism receive a lot of emphasis and study. There is a lot of social and religious pressure to support these feelings, for the good of a country or future generations.

In comparison, trust seems to receive little emphasis. People decide on an individual basis who to trust. Often, trust may happen just because it is convenient. For example, a person may want a sandwich, so they walk into the nearest restaurant and order food, trusting that the food will be good even with no information about it.

This kind of routine trust is essential to the modern economy. It isn't possible for any private citizen or business owner to know, personally, even a small fraction of the people that they do business with. The giant shopping businesses like Walmart, with thousands of imported products, have replace the corner grocer or the local farmer. The trust for a faceless corporation rather than a recognized individual has developed during this transition, perhaps from necessity.

In religion, the question of trust is even more puzzling. Some people can have faith and trust in their God with no effort. Atheists, on the other hand, are more skeptical and prefer evidence to trust.

With Islam, the situation is even more complex, because trust in religion is mixed with economics, politics, and cultures. Do insurgents in Iraq distrust each other and fight because of religious differences, or because of political or social conflict? Do poor countries remain poor because the people can't form bonds of trust for free economic exchange? These are questions that are important to understand in order to address these serious issues.

What will it accomplish? This proposal is to develop a common sense discussion and consideration of the factors that can foster a feeling of trust. Since trust is decided on a personal level, a complex philosophical or scientific study may not be warranted, but a discussion will give a base of ideas that can be developed later. It isn't necessary to look for a "magic bullet" to produce trust out of nothing. Instead, by identifying promising approaches, it should be possible to incrementally increase trust by using incentives. This can promote the development of free enterprise interactions.

Who will be involved? The Washington Area Secular Humanists (WASH) can contribute to this discussion. Over WASH's 18-year history, we have assembled a group of volunteer members who are interested in discussions of ethical, social, and religious topics. WASH has seven active chapters in the Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. area. Each chapter has at least one monthly meeting to hear a speaker or discuss an issue of social interest. WASH has published a monthly newsletter for its entire existence with articles and letters contributed by members. More recently, we've developed our web site, www.wash.org, also with member content. We are in the process of printing our second book of essays by members, and the essays are already on the web site at http://www.wash.org/bluebook.html and http://www.wash.org/greenbook.html. These media show that WASH fosters intellectual contributions from all our members, not just spokespeople.

In particular, WASH sponsored a short essay contest among members to address the question, "Why Do I Like Humanism?" The essays are posted on our web site at http://bsh.wash.org/WILH essays.htm

What are the anticipated outcomes? This project will solicit essays or contributions about what members find trustworthy, or what they find untrustworthy. The project funding will be used to provide incentives to the authors. The prestige and support of Templeton Foundation support will encourage more thoughtful and lengthier work than we might otherwise get. Results will be posted on the web site, and we anticipate enough content to publish another book.

What will be its enduring impact? The world is too small to take trust for granted, or to expect that cooperation will just happen by itself. It is important for the good of future civilization to begin a detailed, technical study to understand how to foster trust among different groups.

Relation to the Foundation's Mission, Core Themes and Funding Areas.

To aid you in responding to the following question, we encourage you to spend time on our familiarizing yourself with our Mission, Core Themes, and Funding Areas. How does your project advance the mission of the Foundation? (Please limit your response to 1,000 characters, or approximately 1/2 typed page.)

According to the Templeton Foundation web site,

"These big essential questions, once considered the sole domain of priests and philosophers, are now being addressed by scientists around the world, many of them supported by the Foundation." The idea of studying trust is another of those big question that cries out for study supported by the Foundation.

This proposal is consistent with the goal of the Foundation's Local Societies Initiative, "to create new conversations between groups exploring the rich overlap between science and religion." WASH has a long history and a vigorous membership who are interested in these discussions.

The Foundation may have reluctance to fund a secular humanist group, since it has a reputation for funding theistic, especially Christian, causes. WASH is an organization that is explicitly dedicated to promoting ethical and philosophical nontheistic thought. We recognize that nontheistic ethics has to demonstrate that it can provide guidelines for a good lifestyle. In comparison, Christianity already has a 2000 year history. The Templeton Foundation can demonstrate its openness toward new ideas by supporting investigations about nontheism.

Request Amount

This is the total amount of funding you are requesting from the John Templeton Foundation. No formatting is necessary. Please note: if you are invited to submit a full proposal to the Foundation you will be able to update the request amount at that time.

$10,000

Total Project Budget

If the total project budget is more than the requested amount above, please list the total project budget. No formatting is necessary. Please note: if you are invited to submit a full proposal to the Foundation you will be able to update the request amount at that time.

$20,000

Proposed Project Start Date

Please provide the date you would like to see the project start.

Dec. 1, 2007

Proposed Project End Date

Please provide the date you would like to see the project end.

Nov. 30, 2008.

History with the Foundation

How did you come to learn about the Foundation? Have you talked with anyone at the Foundation about your proposed project? (Please limit your response to 1,000 characters, or approximate 1/2 typed page.)

How did you come to learn about the Foundation? We are, of course, familiar with the work of the Foundation because of the Templeton Prize and from lectures by prizewinners. However, some members of our group have been reluctant to inquire about support because of a perceived pro-Christian bias.

Have you talked with anyone at the Foundation about your proposed project?

This submission is our first contact with the Foundation. Since WASH is a volunteer and member-supported organization, we do not require funds for operating support. However, we are interested in finding out whether the Foundation will support our project, and we will gladly accept comments.

Response from the Templeton Foundation

Dear Dr. Creasy :

Proposal ID: 13103

Project Title: The Sources of Trust in Social Relationships

Thank you for submitting an Online Funding Inquiry to the John Templeton Foundation on 8/20/2007 to support your project entitled: The Sources of Trust in Social Relationships. We appreciate your interest in the philanthropic mission of the Foundation. We regret your project does not adequately align with the Foundation's mission, Core Themes, Funding Areas or strategic direction.

Since your proposed project seems like it could be eligible to compete for a grant from the Local Societies Initiative, you may be interested to know that the Local Societies Initiative should be offering new grant awards at some point in 2008.

We appreciate the opportunity to learn about your work. Please accept our best wishes in your efforts to obtain alternative funding. We wish you great success in your endeavors.

Sincerely,

Program Team

John Templeton Foundation