Explore our 5 real-life examples of local government dashboards that enhance transparency and decision-making. Contact us for more information!
Cities and counties today are looking for ways to improve transparency, and a public-facing dashboard is a tangible and effective way to convey your information and demonstrate your commitment to transparency and progress towards goals.
To start, letâs clarify what a good Local Government dashboard is and what it isnât.
A citizen-facing, local government dashboard is a way to showcase performance and tell a story about your data, but we do not believe it should be a "data dump" of every possible metric and measurement. Dashboards should summarize the most important measures and goals for your organization and provide context and analysis, without overwhelming residents with volumes of raw data.
Also, for cities/counties with a variety of different measures and initiatives, the dashboard is not typically a single "cockpit-style" screen filled with charts. As shown in the examples of local government dashboards provided in this article, many cities and counties use dashboards more like a storybook, offering relevant information in clear and digestible segments.
Donât weigh down your dashboards with too many data pointsâshow citizens only whatâs important.
This leads us to the first key component of telling your organizationâs storyâa solid introduction.
When residents visit your dashboard page or site, itâs important to start with a bit of context. Think of it as a welcome messageâyouâre setting the stage for what residents will be seeing, helping them better understand priorities, measurements, and the overall commitment to transparency.
The City of Sugar Land, Texas, uses a straightforward tagline on its dashboard homepage: âAccountability. Transparency. Citizen-Focused.â
As you can see here on their About Page, they begin with an explanation of the dashboardâs purpose, background, and priorities, as well as descriptions of their green/amber/red/blue status indicators and definitions of their fiscal year and quarters.
Always keep your audience in mind.
Your citizens donât need the same level of detail as your internal stakeholders, and theyâre likely unfamiliar with the various performance areas highlighted on your dashboard.
Simplify the data and spell out information to help community members understand what theyâre looking at, regardless of their familiarity with strategic planning.
For example, explain:
Again, the City of Sugar Land offers a good example. From the Responsible City Government page, itâs stated in plain language that you can click on each measure for more information. After a click, viewers are led to a detail page that explains the timeframe (quarters of the fiscal year), analysis, definitions, significance, and data source.
The City of West Palm Beach launched a Community Dashboard in 2018 as part of a transparency initiative titled "West Palm Beach Working".
The Dashboard is the visible centerpiece, providing up-to-date key City performance measures pulling in data seamlessly from ClearPoint. The data serves as a snapshot for the public to view how the City is measuring up against the seven categories of their strategic plan.
Residents can see a description of each measure, an explanation of its performance, charts, and the measureâs overall status.
As seen in the dashboard image below, the City of Forth Worth illustrates how you can concisely explain why some measures donât have targets. When you hover over the "No Target" information icon in the legend, a pop-up appears: â...they are only monitored for changeâŠâ
Notice we said âkeyâ! Donât weigh down your dashboards with too many data pointsâwe recommend focusing on whatâs important. Your goal is to highlight priority areas and explain how the data youâre tracking and the key projects youâre pursuing in those areas help your city perform better.
Your community needs an easy way to review your performance, rather than having to sift through pages and pages of reports. Creation (or improvement) of a Dashboard is an opportunity to determine what information is most important to display about each measure and project. Itâs often helpful to:
If youâre concerned about not showcasing all your data in its entirety, you can always provide links to your full reports, open data platforms, or other comprehensive sources.
As part of their "Germantown 2030" strategic plan initiative, the City of Germantown heavily involved residents and as a result, felt it was particularly important to provide a Dashboard of key indicators to keep the public well-informed.
As stated by Adrienne Royals, the senior analyst for the city of Germantown, "Germantownâs city administrator wanted the public to be able to see the strategic planâparticularly since theyâd been so involved and given so much feedback. The goal is to continue improving our transparency with citizens so they could see the progression toward their goals for the City."
âThe City of Durham didnât have a strategic plan for many years. Once the economy took a hit, they knew implementing a strategy would be a good idea. Using performance management software, Durham city officials were able to create and publish their dashboard and display their strategic performance measures for citizens in an easily digestible format. This helped foster a better sense of local government transparency:
âSince implementing the strategic plan, thereâs been more of a collaborative effort. Weâve seen better communication between departments, a stronger partnership with the county, and more opportunities to engage with our residents.â - Jay Reinstein, former Strategic Plan Project Manager (Durham, North Carolina)
The City of Fort Worth uses clear language and bar charts to explain its performance on measures. Below the charts are definitions, analysis, and associated links for further context:
If youâve put the work into building and publishing your government dashboard but traffic and page views are low, your site could be hard to navigate. Do you need a redesign?
Using aids like top navigation menus, breadcrumbs, and other visible links helps citizens move through the dashboardâdigging deeper when they wantâto find the information theyâre seeking. Easy navigation also gives an overarching picture of your priorities and how all the measures tie together.
Another reason your dashboard site might have low traffic is that itâs âinvisible.â Just because you collected and published this data doesnât mean citizens know it exists (or where to look for it). Advertise your dashboard and the major updates you make to it on your cityâs website, social media channels, etc. Make sure your community knows how to find it!
Donât shy away from the idea of creating a videoâitâs not as difficult as youâd think and adds a personal touch to a government dashboard. When citizens can see and hear city leadership speaking about priorities and performance, it creates a connection and demonstrates your commitment to transparency.
The City of Sugar Landâs city manager appears in this video explaining the priorities, how the measures were created, and how to access the dashboard. As he says in the video, âitâs all about accountability.â
The launch of the City of Olatheâs dashboard was picked up by a local news channel as an easier way to look into the cityâs safety data, including crime rates, and explains that the priorities were chosen by the city council.
The article stresses the Olathe dashboardâs ease of use, saying, âThe new interactive dashboard basically puts city information on a handy, clickable website for instant information, replacing the often-arduous task of sifting through dozens of pages of annual reports.â
Creating (or improving) a Local Government dashboard can be a high-profile deliverable - something useful and tangible that residents can see and appreciate.
Even with so much impact, the creation and maintenance of a dashboard doesn't have to require an army of staff or a great deal of effort overall. Technology can help - there are software options specifically designed to make it easy to bring local government data together and display it in a custom dashboard format on an ongoing basis.
For example, if youâre already tracking your strategic plan performance using ClearPoint software, you can update your dashboards with just a few clicks - it takes less than a minute to keep citizens in the know and provide accountability to your community.
To learn more about ClearPoint and/or to discuss additional examples of local government dashboards, book a demo and a conversation (and ask about our Dashboard Gallery).
Tricia manages our implementation and onboarding team to ensure the success of ClearPoint customers.