ACLT Institute
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Create an enterprise accessibility program charter
Connect accessibility priorities to decision authority, service ownership, and resources.
Starter draft for review. Use as a conversation or planning aid.
Choose a boundary leaders can act on
Begin with one business unit, product, or employee service. Name the outcome people need, the systems involved, and the decisions your team can change.
Complete the charter together
- Purpose
- People can independently complete [customer or employee task] across [included channels].
- Executive sponsor
- The role authorized to resolve priorities, resource needs, and cross-team disagreements.
- Accountable owner
- The role responsible for the whole product or service outcome, including vendor handoffs.
- Delivery responsibilities
- List the decisions owned by product, design, engineering, content, QA, procurement, and support.
- Working expectations
- Specify how accessibility enters planning, purchasing, acceptance, releases, maintenance, and communications.
- Support
- Agree capacity, training, specialist review, disabled user participation, and funding.
- Escalation and review
- Name who receives a blocking issue, who can authorize action, and the meeting where unresolved barriers are reviewed.
Record one concrete commitment
Capture the affected task; barrier and evidence; decision; accountable role; support agreed; due date; completion evidence; and next review. Keep responsibility attached to a role rather than an informal champion.
Ask the continuity question
If the accessibility specialist were unavailable next month, what would keep this practice working? Give the answer an owner and a place in the operating calendar.
ACLT connection: leadership makes access part of organizational identity through the decisions, resources, and routines it reinforces.