Introduction: Citizens' participation in financing, consulting, performance monitoring, organizational decision-making, social inspections, etc. is of key importance for organizational promotion, and achieving organizational goals in all organizations, including the welfare organization. Despite the importance of public participation and cooperation in advancing and elevating the goals of social Organization and institutions, various studies around the world show a decrease in public participation and social cooperation with social institutions. Numerous meta-analytic studies show that people's interest in others has greatly decreased over the past few decades, especially since 1999, reaching its lowest level between 2000 and 2010 (Konrath et al., 2011). Reports in Iran also show that the level of social assistance to the welfare organization has declined sharply in recent years (Mousavi, 2018; Hashemi, 2018). It is argued that due to economic problems, people are no longer able to provide assistance to the needy and disabled, and the Welfare Organization is facing a reduction in public assistance. 

Method: The present study was conducted by descriptive method in the form of ex-post facto and cross-sectional design. The data were collected from 408 residents of the cities of Rasht, Lahijan, and Talesh in Guilan province in February and March 2021. Samples were selected using multistage cluster sampling method. The measuring instruments were: Adult Trust Scale (28-items) (Sacchi, 2004), Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale (Canty-Mitchell & Zimet, 2000), Norm of Reciprocity (Short form) (Perugini et al., 2003), Modified Social Network Index (Berkman & Syme, 1979), Social Responsibility Questionnaire (Ahmadi, 2009), Empathy Questionnaire (Ahmadi, 2009), Revised Citizen Participation Questionnaire (Haruta & Radu, 2010), Organizational Transparency Questionnaire (Rawlins, 2008), Researcher-made questionnaire of knowledge of cooperation methods, researcher-made questionnaire on the level of cooperation with the welfare organization. Data were analyzed using independent one-way ANOVA method.

Findings: In this study, 408 people (240 men and 168 women) were studied. There was significant differences between people without assistance, moderate cooperation, and high cooperation in terms of social trust, total perceived social support, social ties and networks; norm of social reciprocity, the belief in the norm of social responsibility; feeling of empathy; belief in not involving citizens in the decisions of the welfare organization; belief in the lack of transparency in the performance of the welfare organization, and citizens' awareness of how to provide assistance to the welfare organization.

Discussion: The mean score of total social trust as well as the components of general social trust and relative trust of people with high level of cooperation were significantly higher than people with medium and high level of cooperation, while the level of social distrust among people with low level of help was higher. Respondents with a high level of social cooperation received higher mean scores for total perceived social support as well as components of perceived social support by friends and perceived social support by family compared to the two groups poor and moderate cooperation. The level of social ties and social network was higher among people with medium and high level of cooperation than people poor cooperation. Respondents with a high level of social cooperation had more and stronger belief in the norm of reciprocity in the community compared to people poor and moderate cooperation. People with a high and medium level of cooperation had higher scores on the norm of social responsibility and the components of social commitment and acceptance of the consequences of behavior compared to people poor social cooperation. The mean score of total altruistic behavior and its components among people with a high level of cooperation was significantly higher than the mean score of respondents with a weak and moderate level of social cooperation. Respondents with low levels of social cooperation believed that the welfare organization uses less of the opinions of citizens and donors in receiving rehabilitation and rehabilitation methods, as well as providing assistance to the needy. Also, people with low levels of cooperation believed that the Welfare Organization did not provide detailed information about donations received from the people, methods and locations of public donations, and did not make it possible to access this information. Most people with poor levels of cooperation reported that they had little information about how to help the welfare organization.

Funding: This work was supported by the Guilan Welfare Organization under Contract No. 934/99/145770 on 22/02/2020. The funding agencies had no role in study design, data collection, analysis or interpretation of data, writing or review of manuscript, or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Authors' contribution: This article has only one author.

Conflict of interest: Authors declared no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments: The author thanks all the managers of the General Department of Welfare of Guilan province who helped the researcher in the present study.