About RMH Compass: Developing the Survey

As a nonprofit organization, our independent research and rigorous methodology ensure our tools and resources are unbiased, transparent, and credible. Through our work, we are building a business community that understands the value of RMH benefits and is committed to ensuring access for workers at every level.

History of the RMH Compass Standard

The development of the performance standard for RMH Compass was informed by our Founder & CEO Flory Wilson’s experience developing the B Impact Assessment and methodology at B Lab.  Based on her experience developing that evaluation tool, scoring model and standards working group, Flory replicated many of the same best-in-class framework practices while developing the standard for RMH Compass.

Several convenings contributed to the development of the RMH Compass Standard, including a multi-stakeholder event held in partnership with the Birnbaum Center for Women's Leadership at NYU Law in January 2023, a business roundtable event in March 2023, and a Standards Advisory Working Group (SAWG) that convened from July to December 2023 to create the first performance standard for RMH Compass.

Standards Governance

Oversight of the RMH Compass Standard is the responsibility of RMH Compass’ Standards Advisory Working Group (SAWG), an independent committee composed of individuals with subject-matter  expertise and experience on topics related to reproductive and maternal health.    The SAWG has advised on the framework to set a best-practice standard for corporate benefits and policies using a good/better/best ranking.  The SAWG provided input on the range of topics (benefits and policies) included in the framework and reviewed research compiled by the Gender IDEAL team regarding the provision and standards of each topic to set the good/better/best benchmarks.  Lastly, the SAWG reviewed the scoring methodology and the survey that allows companies to evaluate their performance on the RMH Compass Standard.

Standards Advisory Working Group (SAWG) Members

Working group experts and practitioners in the field of reproductive and maternal health include:

• Amy Beacom, Founder and CEO, Center for Parental Leave Leadership

• Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, Executive Director, Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center @ NYU Law

• Kanika Harris, Director of Maternal Health, Black Women’s Health Imperative

• Mia Dell, Deputy Directory, Advocacy, AFL-CIO

• Oriaku Njoku, Executive Director, National Network of Abortion Funds

• Natalie Silverman, CoFounder, Fertility Matters @ Work

• Shawnie Hawkins, Senior Director for the Workplace Equality Program, Human Rights Campaign

• Shelley Alpern, Director of Shareholder Advocacy, RHIA Ventures

• Sunita Thakkar Mahtani, Vice President, Corporate Engagement, PPFA

Core Values

Our core values inform the approach and goals we use in developing the RMH Compass survey:

• We believe reproductive and maternal health (RMH) care is a basic human right. 

• Our approach is rooted in equity and the belief that all workers—regardless of their income level, job status, geography, or identity—must have access to comprehensive RMH benefits.  

• We are setting the standard and providing guidance on what best-in-class reproductive and maternal health (RMH) benefits look like for all employers. 

• We base the foundation of our work on the understanding that RMH benefits are valued by employees, and that providing comprehensive benefits is valuable for employers.

• We are future-focused and will continue innovating our products to ensure employers are incentivized to advance the reproductive and maternal health (RMH) benefits they offer. 

RMH Compass Survey

With these values in mind, the RMH Compass Survey is designed to be:

• Research-Based - Leveraging independent, credible research that measures the provision of different health benefits and policies from a variety of sources allows us to ensure that our standard is rooted in data.

• Aspirational – Each Topic in the RMH Compass standard has three performance tiers that we think of as good, better, and best-in-class.  The reality is while many companies will reach the good or better standard for some topics, few companies will reach the best-in-class standard in any area.  This is intentional; we want all companies to be able to identify opportunities for improvement while celebrating their current strengths.

• Informative – RMH Compass is designed to inform and support users to improve their RMH benefits performance. Our Resource Hub includes supplemental resources such as sample policies, real-world case studies, and business case data that explain how RMH benefits can create value for a company.

• Confidential – All data submitted to RMH Compass by companies are strictly confidential.  For benchmarking and research purposes, data is shared in aggregate (no fewer than 4 companies per data point) and anonymized. More information is available in our privacy policy.

• Evolving – As norms shift over time, so too will our performance standard.  The RMH Compass standard will be revised on a two-year cycle, with input provided by corporate users, subject-matter experts, and our Standards Advisory Working Group.