Cite, access, and use Compassion Benchmark data
Compassion Benchmark is an independent benchmark institution. Scores are based on published methodology and are never influenced by the entities being scored. This page gives journalists, researchers, and policy professionals everything they need to cite, link, and reference the benchmark in their work.
Independence: Entities never pay for inclusion, score changes, or suppression of findings. Commercial services support access, interpretation, and institutional use only.
Fast access
- Flagship 2026 report — press centerpiece, ready-to-cite
- Citation formats — copy-ready strings
- Data endpoints — machine-readable JSON
- RSS / JSON feeds — subscribe to score updates
- Methodology — full scoring framework
- Contact for data briefings
Flagship Report — For Journalists
The State of Institutional Compassion — 2026
The benchmark's inaugural state-of-the-field report. 1,156 institutions scored across seven index families on one shared 0–100 framework. The modal result is mediocrity; 67.7% cluster in the middle bands; a 90.5% equity gap persists across every index family. Methodology and independence disclosures are embedded in the report.
For press inquiries and data briefings — use the contact page. No embargo applies; the full report is publicly available.
Ready-to-cite (report)
Compassion Benchmark. "The State of Institutional Compassion — 2026." compassionbenchmark.com/updates/special/state-of-institutional-compassion-2026. Accessed [Month Year]. Independent — entities never pay for inclusion, score changes, or suppression of findings.
How to cite the benchmark
Copy-ready citation strings for journalism, academic work, and dataset references.
General citation string
Compassion Benchmark. compassionbenchmark.com. Accessed [Month Year]. Independent — entities never pay for inclusion, score changes, or suppression of findings.
AP-style (journalism)
According to the Compassion Benchmark (compassionbenchmark.com), accessed [Month Year], [Entity] scores [score] out of 100 on the [Index].
Academic / APA-adjacent
Compassion Benchmark. ([Year]). [Entity name]. compassionbenchmark.com/[index]/[slug]. Retrieved [Month Day, Year].
Dataset reference
Compassion Benchmark. "[Index] dataset." compassionbenchmark.com/data/indexes/[slug].json. Accessed [Month Year].
Replace placeholders in brackets with the entity name, URL, and access date. For the entity URL pattern, see an example: compassionbenchmark.com/fortune-500/microsoft.
Data access
Machine-readable score data for all 1,156 entities — free to access, please cite with attribution.
Available endpoints
- /data/index.json — full entity catalog (1,156 entries)
- /data/indexes/{slug}.json — per-index aggregate (7 indexes)
- /data/scores/{slug}.json — per-entity scores (~1,156 files)
Terms of use
Data published at compassionbenchmark.com/data/ is free to access. Please cite with attribution. For formal data usage rights — structured exports, institutional licensing, redistribution — see the data licenses page.
Charts on index and entity pages use own-data SVG. You may reference or reproduce them with attribution to Compassion Benchmark and a link to the source page.
RSS and JSON feeds
Subscribe to daily score updates in your feed reader or by polling the JSON endpoint.
RSS feed
Standard RSS 2.0 feed of daily benchmark briefings. Compatible with feed readers and journalistic alert tools.
compassionbenchmark.com/updates/feed.xmlJSON feed
JSON Feed 1.1 format — machine-parseable daily briefings, suitable for programmatic monitoring of score changes.
compassionbenchmark.com/updates/feed.jsonMethodology
The scoring framework, evidence hierarchy, and adversarial pressure-test model behind every score.
What the scores measure
Each entity is scored across 8 dimensions (Awareness, Responsiveness, Policy, Systemic, Participation, Learning, Communication, Integration) totaling 40 subdimensions. The composite score is a weighted mean (0–100). Scores are grouped into five bands: Critical, Developing, Functional, Established, and Exemplary.
Read full methodologyIndependence guarantee
The methodology is applied identically to all entities. Scores are evidence-linked and can change in response to documented events. Entities never pay for inclusion, a better score, or removal of findings. This separation is non-negotiable and is the basis for the benchmark's citability.
About the institutionMedia and data inquiries
For data briefings, methodology questions, media requests, or information about citing the benchmark in published work, use the general contact channel. There is no dedicated press email — all inquiries are handled through the same single contact point.