Help & Guide

Getting started

If your organization has a VeriPledge profile, or you want to create one, these are the steps. The order matters less than finishing them. Your dashboard shows a Getting started checklist for each profile you manage. It tracks your progress and always points to the next step.

1. Claim your profile: take ownership of an existing profile, or create a new one.
2. Complete your profile: logo, website and a short description.
3. Publish your pledges: declare your standards in your own words, replacing any preliminary VeriPledge assessment.
4. Verify your domain (recommended): prove you control your website so visitors can trust the profile is really yours.
5. Add the badge to your website (recommended): show visitors your live pledges.

You need a free account for all of these. Register here and confirm your email address first.

Claiming your profile

Many organizations already have a profile, built by VeriPledge from public information. Claiming it makes you its owner, so you can edit it and publish pledges for it. There are three ways to claim.

With a claim code (fastest)

If we emailed you about your profile, the email has a claim code like ABCD-EFGH-JKLM, or a link that fills it in for you.

1. Sign in and open Dashboard → Claim Entity, or just follow the link in the email.
2. Click Enter Claiming Code and type the code. The matching profile appears below it.
3. Check that it's the right organization and click Claim Profile. That's it. The profile is yours.

By searching and verifying your domain

1. Open Dashboard → Claim Entity and start typing your organization's name.
2. Pick it from the results and click Claim Profile.
3. Without a code, you prove you're authorized by verifying the domain. The claim completes once verification succeeds.

By creating a new profile

Can't find your organization? On the claim page, click Create New Profile, choose the organization type and fill in the details. You become the owner straight away.

Completing your profile

From your dashboard, click Edit Profile on any profile you manage. Fill in:

• Logo URL: a direct link to your logo image (for example https://example.com/logo.png).
• Website and domain: the domain is what you'll verify, so make sure it's correct, e.g. example.com.
• Description, industry and location: these help people find you in the Directory.
• Contact email: where we send notices about your profile. It isn't shown publicly.

Publishing and updating pledges

A pledge is a public declaration of where your organization stands on a topic, such as AI transparency, privacy, accessibility, cookies & tracking or cybersecurity. Each topic has numbered levels. The Standards Library explains every one.

1. From your dashboard, click Update Pledge.
2. Choose the topic you want to declare.
3. Choose the level that honestly describes your organization today. Read each description; they're specific.
4. Add notes and scope (optional but recommended). Notes give context or evidence. Scope says what the pledge covers, e.g. "our public website; the third-party careers portal is out of scope". Both are public.
5. Click Publish Declaration. Repeat for each topic.

Preliminary assessments

Pledges marked VeriPledge assessment are our reading of your public information. They are not your declaration. Publishing your own pledge for that topic replaces ours, and the profile then shows your declaration instead.

Changing a pledge later

Publish a new pledge for the same topic. The old one isn't deleted: it moves into the profile's public history, so anyone can see what changed and when. This permanent record is what makes the ledger trustworthy. Pledges are valid for 12 months, so review them at least once a year.

Digital properties

Digital properties are the websites, apps, portals and kiosks your organization runs. For topics like accessibility, a pledge is only as good as the systems it covers, so the profile lists them and shows how each one measures up (Meets, Partially meets, Does not meet).

1. Open Dashboard → My Entities and click the Digital properties icon.
2. Rows with a robot icon are VeriPledge's preliminary read. Edit each one to confirm or correct it.
3. Click Add a property for anything missing: name, URL, type, provider (if a vendor runs it) and the standard it targets.

Verifying your domain

Verifying proves you control your organization's website. Your profile then shows a Domain verified mark, which is the strongest signal to visitors that the profile really speaks for you. You only need to do one of the two methods.

Option A: DNS TXT record (recommended)

1. From your dashboard, click Verify Domain. Keep the DNS TXT Record tab open and copy the value shown.
2. Sign in where your domain's DNS is managed (your registrar or host, e.g. GoDaddy, Cloudflare, IONOS, Namecheap or Google/Squarespace).
3. Add a new record:

   Type	Host / Name	Value
   TXT	_veripledge-verification	the value from step 1

   Some providers want the full name (_veripledge-verification.example.com). Others add your domain automatically, so enter only _veripledge-verification. If unsure, try the short form first.
4. Save, wait a few minutes, then go back to VeriPledge and click Verify Now. DNS changes can take up to 24 hours to spread. If it fails, just try again later.

Option B: HTML meta tag

If you can edit your homepage but not your DNS, switch to the Meta Tag tab, copy the tag, and paste it inside the <head> of your homepage. Publish the change, then click Verify Now.

Adding the badge to your website

The badge is a small live widget for your website. It always shows your current pledges, and it links to your public profile. When you update a pledge, the badge updates by itself.

1. From your dashboard, click Badge. You need at least one published pledge.
2. Choose which pledge to show, or All Pledges, and check the preview.
3. Click Copy and paste the snippet into your website where you want the badge, typically the footer. Most website builders (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace) have an "HTML" or "Embed code" block for this.

Transparency statement (PDF)

Click Statement on your dashboard to download a PDF transparency statement: a dated summary of your current pledges that you can attach to reports, procurement responses or board materials. Visitors can download the same statement from your public profile.

Linking related organizations

Link your profile to parent organizations, departments, divisions or affiliates so visitors see the full picture (for example, a city and its departments).

1. Open Dashboard → Relationships.
2. Under your organization, click Add a relationship, search for the other organization and pick the relationship.
3. If you manage both, the link takes effect immediately. Otherwise the other side gets a request and the link appears once they accept.

The same page shows requests waiting for your response, plus possible connections VeriPledge found that you can confirm or dismiss. Either side can remove a link at any time.

Getting Verified status

The highest status, Verified, means the VeriPledge team has reviewed the profile and its pledges. To request it, open Dashboard → My Entities and click the Request Audit button. Add notes or links to evidence that support your pledges. We'll review it and get back to you.

Domain disputes

Disputes protect against someone verifying a subdomain they no longer control, e.g. a former vendor still holding portal.example.com.

• If you're verified on a parent domain (example.com), a Dispute domain control button appears on profiles verified on its subdomains. Explain why and file the dispute.
• If your profile is challenged, you'll get an email and a red banner on your dashboard. If you still manage the domain, click Confirm I control this domain within 14 days. Otherwise the Domain verified mark is removed.

Reading a profile

Every profile shows how far its information can be trusted:

• Community Sourced: assembled from public information. The organization hasn't claimed it yet.
• Owner Declared: claimed by the organization, which published its own pledges.
• Verified: reviewed by the VeriPledge team.
• Domain verified: the owner proved they control the organization's website.

Each pledge shows its level, notes and scope. Use the history to see how declarations changed over time. To put organizations side by side, use Compare, or browse the Directory.

Reporting and nominating

See something that doesn't match reality? Click Report on the profile and describe the discrepancy. Our team reviews every report.

Want an organization evaluated that isn't listed yet? Use Nominate.

FAQ

Does VeriPledge cost anything?

No. Claiming a profile, publishing pledges, verifying your domain and using the badge are all free.

Can I delete a pledge?

No, and that's deliberate. You can replace a pledge with a new one, but the old version stays in the public history. A ledger that can be quietly edited isn't worth trusting.

Can more than one person manage a profile?

Not yet. Each profile has one owning account. If the person who claimed it leaves your organization, contact us to transfer it.

My domain verification keeps failing.

The most common causes: the record was added under the wrong host name (see the note above about short vs. full names), DNS hasn't spread yet (wait and retry), or the domain on your profile doesn't match the one you edited. Check the domain in Edit Profile.

We disagree with VeriPledge's preliminary assessment.

Claim the profile and publish your own pledge for that topic. It replaces our assessment. If you think the assessment itself was wrong, tell us via Contact.