What Is Good Faith Outreach?

Good faith outreach is the standard OFCCP applies when evaluating whether a federal contractor’s recruitment efforts toward veterans, individuals with disabilities, and other protected groups were genuine rather than performative. What is good faith outreach in practical terms comes down to whether the effort was real, sustained, and documented, not whether it produced a specific hiring outcome. An organization can meet the good faith standard and still not hit its benchmark in a given year, but it cannot meet the standard by simply posting a job and hoping.

What Is Good Faith Outreach’s Consistency Requirement

A core element of what good faith outreach requires is consistency over time, rather than a burst of activity concentrated around a compliance review. Outreach conducted once, right before an anticipated audit, doesn’t reflect the sustained effort OFCCP expects. What is good faith outreach worth if it only appears in the record during the months leading up to a known review period is a question reviewers are trained to ask.

What Is Good Faith Outreach’s Documentation Standard

What is good faith outreach without documentation is, from an evidentiary standpoint, indistinguishable from outreach that never happened. The standard requires organizations to retain records of specific outreach activities, which organizations were contacted, when, through what channel, and what response resulted, so the effort can be verified rather than simply asserted during a review.

What Is Good Faith Outreach’s Relationship to Results

One of the more misunderstood aspects of what good faith outreach means is that it isn’t measured purely by hiring outcomes. An organization that documents genuine, sustained outreach efforts and still falls short of its benchmark can still be meeting the good faith standard, provided it responds to the shortfall with additional targeted effort. What is good faith outreach ultimately evaluates is process and effort, with outcomes serving as one input among several, not the sole measure.

What Is Good Faith Outreach Across Protected Categories

What is good faith outreach applies similarly across VEVRAA‘s veteran outreach requirements and Section 503’s disability outreach requirements, though the specific organizations and channels differ. An organization needs distinct outreach relationships for veteran employment networks and disability employment organizations, and combining or conflating the two doesn’t satisfy the good faith standard for either category independently.

What Is Good Faith Outreach’s Evaluation Requirement

Part of what good faith outreach requires is periodically evaluating whether specific outreach channels are actually effective, and adjusting the approach when a channel consistently produces no results. Continuing to invest in an outreach relationship that’s demonstrably stopped generating applicant flow, without any adjustment, can undermine the good faith argument during a review, since it suggests the outreach exists for documentation purposes rather than genuine recruitment.

What Is Good Faith Outreach’s Role in an OFCCP Review

During a compliance review, what is good faith outreach evaluated against is the organization’s own documented history, compared to what a reasonable, genuinely committed employer would have done given its resources and hiring volume. This is a contextual standard, not a fixed checklist, which is precisely why thorough documentation matters so much, since the organization’s records are what tell that story to the reviewer.

How dstribute.io Supports Good Faith Outreach Automatically

dstribute.io builds good faith outreach into every posting your ATS submits, consistently and continuously, not in bursts tied to an anticipated review. Outreach distribution reaches 2,000 job boards, including veteran and disability employment networks, automatically on every posting, with delivery tracked and retained. Every suitable opening also routes to the correct state workforce agency system based on job location, and compliance language applies consistently across every channel. The complete compliance record stays organized for audit support recordkeeping review. See why federal contractors treat dstribute.io as their Circa posting alternative.

Good Faith Outreach Built Into Your Existing ATS Workflow

dstribute.io connects directly to the ATS platforms federal contractors already run, including Workday, iCIMS, Taleo, Greenhouse, Lever, Bullhorn, and JazzHR. Your recruiters keep working in the system they already know, while every suitable opening automatically generates the documented, consistent outreach good faith outreach standards require. Contact dstribute.io to see how our federal contractor services cover your posting requirements without building an outreach program from scratch.