Where does your organisation actually stand on accountability? Not where you think you stand based on your own internal assessments. Not where you claim to stand in your donor reports. Where you actually stand, based on independent external evidence.
That is the question CHS Benchmarking answers.
A One-Time Diagnostic
Unlike CHS Certification and Independent Verification, Benchmarking is a single-cycle assessment. HQAI auditors conduct a structured review of your organisation's systems, policies, and practice against the nine commitments of the Core Humanitarian Standard. The result is a report that identifies your strengths, names your gaps, and provides specific recommendations for improvement.
Benchmarking does not end with a pass or fail, a certificate, or a formal determination. It ends with a clear picture — and that picture is published on hqai.org.
Who It Is For
Benchmarking is designed for organisations at the beginning of their accountability journey — those who want to understand their baseline before committing to a longer verification or certification process. It is also appropriate for organisations that have completed significant internal accountability reforms and want independent verification of whether those reforms have actually changed practice.
It is worth being direct: Benchmarking is not a substitute for Certification or Verification in the eyes of donors who require those standards. It does not carry the same weight as a formal certification. But for organisations making an honest internal assessment of their starting point, it is an invaluable tool.
What the Process Looks Like
The benchmarking process takes three to four months from engagement to published report. It begins with a remote document review — policies, procedures, MEAL reports, complaint logs — followed by a field visit to one or two programme sites. Community interviews are included. The draft report is shared with the organisation for factual verification before publication.
The Price of Honesty
Some organisations that have commissioned HQAI benchmarking exercises have been surprised by the results — not because the findings were wrong, but because the gap between their internal self-perception and the external evidence was larger than expected. That is uncomfortable. It is also exactly what external accountability scrutiny is supposed to deliver.
If you are ready for honest external feedback on where your organisation stands, get in touch to explore benchmarking.