Many organizations invest time, money, and energy into accessibility and inclusion, but how do they know whether those efforts are making a difference?
Ability Accreditation™ was created to help Canadian organizations look beyond intention and understand how inclusive accessibility is being put into practice and experienced by the people who interact with them.
Through leadership input, staff feedback, public accessibility review, organizational evidence, and verification activities, the accreditation provides organizations with an opportunity to recognize their strengths, identify areas for continued improvement, and demonstrate their commitment to inclusive accessibility.
Because inclusion isn't defined only by what an organization says. It's also reflected in what people experience.
Harvest Season Is About More Than Hard Work
Every fall, harvest season gives us an opportunity to reflect on the results of months of effort.
Farmers don't measure success simply by the number of hours they worked. After months of planning, planting, maintaining, adapting, and responding to changing conditions, harvest is the opportunity to step back and look at what all that work produced.
We believe organizations should be asking themselves a similar question when it comes to accessibility and inclusion.
Many organizations have invested significant effort into becoming more inclusive. They've developed policies, created accommodation processes, improved communication, provided training, considered accessibility, and changed the ways they interact with employees, customers, clients, members, participants, and communities.
Those efforts matter.
But after all that work, how do you know whether it is having the impact you intended?
Good Intentions Are Only the Beginning
Most organizations don't set out to create barriers. In fact, many genuinely want to create welcoming and accessible experiences for the people who work with them, visit them, access their services, or participate in their communities.
The challenge is that intention and experience aren't always the same thing.
An organization may believe its communication is clear, while employees experience uncertainty about where to find information. An accommodation process may exist, while someone requesting accommodation may not know what to expect. Accessibility information may be available, but difficult for a customer or client to locate before they arrive.
That doesn't necessarily mean an organization isn't committed to accessibility.
It means there may be an opportunity to learn.
Understanding the space between what an organization intends to provide and what people actually experience is often where meaningful improvement begins.
The Question We Wanted to Answer
When we began developing Ability Accreditation™, we kept coming back to one question:
How does an organization know whether its accessibility and inclusion efforts are actually working in practice?
Not only in a policy.
Not only in a strategic plan.
Not only because an organization has met a particular legislative requirement.
We wanted to look more broadly at how accessibility and inclusion show up in everyday organizational practices and experiences.
Are leaders committed to inclusive accessibility?
Do employees understand accommodation processes?
Can customers and clients find accessibility information?
Are communication and processes predictable?
Are sensory needs considered?
Is the organization continuing to learn and improve?
These are different questions from asking whether an organization has met its legal obligations, but they can tell us a great deal about how inclusive accessibility is experienced.
Introducing Ability Accreditation™
Ability Accreditation™ is launching November 1st 2026. It is a national accreditation that evaluates inclusive accessibility across Canadian organizations.
It assesses organizations through several components that work together to provide a broader picture of accessibility and inclusion:
Leadership Experience through leadership input about organizational practices and commitments.
Staff Experience through anonymous staff feedback about accessibility and inclusion within the organization.
Public Accessibility Review examining publicly available accessibility information, communication methods, accommodation supports, feedback opportunities, and information that helps people understand what to expect.
Organizational Evidence including policies, procedures, and supporting materials that demonstrate inclusive accessibility practices.
Verification Activities conducted by The Ability Company to validate findings, clarify evidence, and confirm organizational practices.
Organizations pursuing Ability Verified Plus™ also include lived experience feedback from an established membership or defined community through the Community & Member Survey.
Together, these components help us look beyond a single policy, survey, checklist, or statement and consider how inclusive accessibility is reflected across different parts of an organization.
Two Accreditation Outcomes
Organizations that successfully meet the requirements of Ability Accreditation™ may achieve one of two public accreditations.
Ability Verified™ recognizes organizations that meet the Ability Accreditation™ verification requirements through leadership input, staff feedback, public accessibility review, organizational evidence, and verification activities.
Ability Verified Plus™ includes those same requirements while adding lived experience feedback from an established membership or defined community. This may be relevant for organizations such as Chambers of Commerce, First Nations, unions, associations, cooperatives, advisory groups, and program-based organizations.
Ability Verified Plus™ helps provide an even broader picture by bringing organizational evidence together with the experiences of people connected to the organization.
But accreditation isn't about assuming an organization will achieve a designation simply because it applies.
Organizations that do not yet meet the Ability Verified™ requirements receive an Ability Ready Plan, identifying improvement priorities and practical resources that can support their continued accessibility journey and future verification.
Looking Beyond Checklists
Ability Accreditation™ was never intended to be a checkbox exercise.
Accessibility is complex because people's experiences are complex.
That's why the accreditation considers areas including:
Communication
Accessibility and accommodation practices
Sensory considerations
Predictable processes
Continuous improvement
Training and awareness
An organization can have strong policies and still discover areas where the experience could be improved. Another organization may already be doing meaningful inclusive work that it hasn't formally recognized as part of its accessibility practices.
The purpose of assessment is to bring those pieces together.
Experience Matters
One of the most important lessons we've learned through disability advocacy is that a process can look very different depending on who is experiencing it.
Something that feels straightforward internally may be confusing externally. A process that works well for one person may create an unexpected barrier for another. An organization may have supports available, but people may not know how or when to ask for them.
This is why listening matters.
It is also why Ability Accreditation™ doesn't rely on only one source of information. Leadership perspectives, staff feedback, publicly available information, organizational evidence, and verification activities each tell us something different.
For organizations pursuing Ability Verified Plus™, feedback from their established membership or defined community adds another important perspective.
Inclusive accessibility becomes clearer when we look at both organizational practice and human experience.
This Isn't About Legal Compliance
There is an important distinction we want organizations to understand.
Ability Accreditation™ does not replace the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), other provincial accessibility standards, government reporting requirements, or any other legal obligations.
It is also not a building code inspection, legal compliance audit, engineering review, occupational health and safety audit, accessibility certification, or determination of compliance with federal, provincial, territorial, or municipal legislation.
Those processes have their own purposes.
Ability Accreditation™ evaluates accessibility and inclusion practices and experiences.
It asks organizations to look beyond whether a requirement exists and consider how accessibility is actually understood, communicated, implemented, and experienced.
Want to Go a Step Further? Add an On-Site Experience
Organizations can enhance their Ability Accreditation™ process with an optional on-site add-on.
An on-site visit gives The Ability Company an opportunity to experience the organization beyond its documents and publicly available information, adding another perspective on how accessibility and inclusion show up in the physical environment and everyday organizational experience.
The on-site add-on is not a building code inspection, engineering assessment, safety audit, or legal compliance review. It is another way to help connect organizational intentions with the experience people may actually have when they arrive.
What Happens After Accreditation?
Organizations that achieve Ability Verified™ or Ability Verified Plus™ receive their accreditation for 12 months and may display the applicable accreditation badge.
Verified organizations also receive an Executive Summary Report highlighting key findings, strengths, opportunities for continued improvement, and recommended next steps. They are included in the public Ability Accreditation™ Directory so customers, employees, clients, members, participants, and communities can identify organizations that have successfully completed the verification process.
Organizations are reassessed annually because accessibility isn't something we believe should be examined once and forgotten.
Organizations change.
People change.
Practices evolve.
And inclusive accessibility should continue evolving too.
Organizations participating in an Ability Partnership with The Ability Company may also have Ability Accreditation™ included as part of their partnership at no additional cost. This provides an additional pathway to accreditation while supporting their ongoing work to strengthen accessibility and inclusion across their organization.
Are You Ready to Measure the Results?
Organizations often say accessibility and inclusion are important.
Ability Accreditation™ asks organizations to go one step further and look at how those commitments are showing up in practice.
After the policies, training, conversations, accommodations, investments, changes, and improvements, what has all that work produced?
Are employees experiencing inclusive accessibility?
Can customers and clients understand what to expect?
Are accommodation processes clear?
Are barriers being identified and addressed?
Is your organization listening, learning, and continuing to improve?
In other words:
What are you harvesting?
Ability Accreditation™ isn't about expecting organizations to be perfect. It's about creating an opportunity to better understand where you are today, recognize what's working, identify where growth is still possible, and continue moving forward.
Because accessibility should be more than a promise.
It should be more than a policy.
It should be something people can experience.
Key Takeaways
Ability Accreditation™ evaluates inclusive accessibility across Canadian organizations using multiple assessment components rather than relying on a single checklist or policy.
Intention and experience aren't always the same. Understanding both helps organizations recognize strengths and identify opportunities for improvement.
Organizations may achieve Ability Verified™ or Ability Verified Plus™, depending on the applicable assessment requirements and successful completion of the verification process.
Ability Verified Plus™ adds lived experience feedback from an organization's established membership or defined community.
Organizations that do not yet meet Ability Verified™ requirements receive an Ability Ready Plan with improvement priorities and practical resources to support future verification.
Ability Accreditation™ does not replace legal accessibility requirements or determine legal compliance. It evaluates accessibility and inclusion practices and experiences.
Accreditation is valid for 12 months, with annual reassessment reflecting current organizational practices and continued improvement.
The goal isn't perfection. It's understanding where you are, what is working, and where there is an opportunity to grow.
Disclaimer - The Ability Company
The opinions shared in our blogs reflect personal experiences and viewpoints. They’re not meant to represent every journey or replace professional advice.
This content is for informational purposes only and does not replace professional advice. The Ability Company makes no guarantees about accuracy or completeness and is not liable for decisions made based on this content. Use at your own discretion.
