What is a VPAT, and why does your national service program need one?

A VPAT® — Voluntary Product Accessibility Template — is a standardized form a software vendor fills out to describe how its product measures up against accessibility standards. When the form is completed and published, the resulting document is called an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). Most people use the two terms interchangeably and just say “send us your VPAT.”

The template comes from the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI). The edition most state agencies request today is VPAT 2.x, WCAG Edition, evaluated against WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

National service runs on public money. AmeriCorps grantees, state service commissions, and the state agencies that administer those grants are all bound by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires that the technology they buy and deploy be accessible to people with disabilities, and by Section 504, which prohibits disability discrimination in federally funded programs. State-level rules and the ADA add their own requirements on top.

That matters more in national service than in most sectors. An AmeriCorps program may enroll members from age 16 into their nineties, including members who are blind or have low vision, members with motor disabilities who navigate with a keyboard, a mouth stylus, or their feet, and members with cognitive or learning disabilities. If the timesheet, case note, or survey tool a program runs on is unusable for even one of those members, the program has an access problem and, often, a compliance problem.

So when a state agency issues an RFP for member management, volunteer tracking, or outcomes measurement software, the accessibility section usually asks for a current VPAT. Answering “we’re accessible” in a cover letter is not enough; reviewers want the criterion-by-criterion table.

A complete report has a predictable shape, and reviewers look for each part:

• Vendor and product information — Company, product name, product version, report date, the standards evaluated, who authored the report, and how to reach a human about accessibility.
• Evaluation methods — What was actually done — automated scanning, manual keyboard testing, screen reader testing with NVDA and VoiceOver, contrast checks, testing with users who have disabilities.
• Conformance tables — Every WCAG success criterion at the levels claimed, each marked Supports, Partially Supports, Does Not Support, or Not Applicable, with remarks explaining the call.
• Remarks and roadmap — For anything less than full support, an explanation and, ideally, a timeline for remediation.

1. Is it current? A report dated three years ago describes software that no longer exists. Ask for the report date and the product version it covers.
2. Does it cover the right standard? WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the practical baseline for state procurement today.
3. Are “Not Applicable” claims believable? Blanket N/A across whole principles is a warning sign.
4. Was a real person involved in testing? Automated tools catch a minority of issues. Look for keyboard and screen reader testing, and for testing with people with disabilities.
5. Is there a named contact and a process? Someone must own accessibility, respond to reports, and fix what’s broken.
6. Can the vendor demonstrate it live? Ask for a screen reader walkthrough of the workflows your members will use most.

“A VPAT is a certification.” It isn’t. Unless a third-party firm performed the audit, a VPAT is a vendor self-assessment. That doesn’t make it worthless — it makes it a documented, dated claim the vendor is accountable for.

“All Supports means perfect.” Accessibility is continuous work on a product that keeps changing. What an all-Supports report should tell you is that the vendor has tested every criterion and stands behind the answers.

“Only the public-facing site matters.” For national service programs, the internal tools — timesheets, member enrollment, service hour approvals, evaluation surveys — are exactly where accessibility failures lock people out of participation.

The Impact Suite is used by AmeriCorps programs, state service commissions, nonprofits, and school systems whose people range in age from 16 to 90 and above. We design each new module in collaboration with users across that range, including people who navigate without a mouse and people with low vision or light sensitivity, and we test against both NVDA and VoiceOver.

Our current report is evaluated against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, dated July 29, 2026, and covers every Level A and AA success criterion. If you are assembling an RFP response or reviewing one, you can read it in full, print it to PDF, or request a live accessibility demonstration.