City of Durham

City of Durham & ClearPoint Strategy: Data-Driven Governance

Executive Summary

The City of Durham, North Carolina, transformed into a model of data-driven municipal governance through its partnership with ClearPoint Strategy. What began as the city's first strategic planning initiative evolved into a performance management system that aligned budgets with strategic priorities, fostered city-county collaboration, and maintained transparent communication with residents. This story, marked by both challenges and triumphs, shows how strategic planning software combined with organizational commitment can reshape municipal operations.

About the City of Durham

Durham is a city in North Carolina. The 2020 census counted 283,506 residents. More than 2,600 City employees provide services. The City's vision is to be the leading city in providing an excellent and sustainable quality of life. Durham City Council approved the FY 2024-2026 Strategic Plan in June 2023, and the City refreshed it in FY 2026 to develop an FY 2027-2029 plan. The City's public dashboard lets community members see what the City is doing, where progress is being made, and what work remains. Its official site is durhamnc.gov.

Durham's Strategic Evolution

The Beginning: Creating Durham's First Strategic Plan

Durham's move toward data-driven governance began when new City Manager Thomas Bonfield recognized the need to transform the fourth-largest city in North Carolina into an organization that used data to inform decisions and communicate progress to the community. Despite the city's 150-year history, this marked its first formal strategic planning effort.

The planning process was deeply collaborative, involving extensive community input through visioning sessions, surveys, and focus groups. This inclusive approach culminated when the Durham City Council approved "Durham's Got It!" – the city's inaugural strategic plan built around five critical goals:

1. A strong and diverse economy
2. A safe and secure community
3. Thriving and livable neighborhoods
4. A well-managed city
5. Stewardship of the city's physical assets

Initial Implementation and Early Challenges

Durham selected ClearPoint Strategy to manage their strategic plan and track over 500 performance measures across departments. The city established a governance structure with execution teams, goal champions, and vice chairs for each strategic goal, supported by technology, communications, and performance monitoring teams.

However, the initial implementation faced significant obstacles. Limited resources for software management impacted training and process design. More critically, there was no clear ownership of the performance program, and staff weren't held accountable for updating measures or informed about how their data was being used. Just one year after implementation, most employees had reverted to Excel for department performance tracking, though the citywide strategic plan continued to be managed successfully in ClearPoint.

This experience prompted crucial conversations between performance staff and city leadership about what a truly data-driven organization should look like in Durham. The City Manager recognized the need for a different approach to executing citywide performance management and changing the organizational culture.

The Reset: Building a Sustainable Performance Management System

Durham created a cross-sectional team including directors, administrators, and employees to review and reimagine their performance management structure. After examining various strategic planning software options through an RFP process, the city once again selected ClearPoint, recognizing that the newly released ClearPoint 10.0 met their needs but required a revised implementation approach.

The second implementation benefited from several critical success factors:

• Executive Support: Continued backing from the City Manager's Office
• Dedicated Resources: Creation of the Office of Performance and Innovation with staff focused solely on performance and strategic management
• Organizational Buy-in: A structured approach to help employees understand why performance management was vital
• Simplified Processes: Elimination of duplicate data entry across multiple spreadsheets
• Ongoing Training: Continuous support from a designated Performance Manager
• Clear Accountability: Department directors assigned responsibility for their measures
• Integrated Decision-Making: Data requirements for budget requests showed staff their information was being used for important decisions

Operations and the Three-Year Planning Cycle

Under the leadership of Strategy and Performance Manager Shari Metcalfe, Durham operated on a three-year strategic planning cycle:

• Year 1 (First 9 months): Creating the citywide plan with consideration for long-term priorities
• Years 1-2: Departments execute business and fiscal plans
• Year 3: Deep evaluation of performance measures and identification of improvement areas, particularly focusing on "measures that are missing methodology"

Throughout this cycle, regular evaluations ensured continuous improvement rather than waiting for the formal review period.

ClearPoint's Role in Daily Operations

Internal Management

ClearPoint served as the central nervous system for Durham's performance management, housing:

• All departmental business plans and the citywide strategic plan
• Performance metrics with clearly defined methodologies
• Staff meeting setups and agendas (conducted virtually)
• Individual work plans from supervisors to entire divisions
• Milestones and Gantt charts for initiative timeline management
• Budget request documentation with linked performance measures

The system grew from two initial users to over 100 trained employees who actively used its capabilities. "Super users" like Metcalfe built work plans within the system, creating integrated processes that linked metrics, initiatives, and plans.

External Transparency

Durham published public dashboards through ClearPoint, showcasing their Sustainability Plan with plans to revamp their main dashboard. This transparency initiative allowed meaningful interaction with the community and demonstrated the city's commitment to open governance.

Measuring Impact: Tangible Benefits

Financial Discipline

The integration of performance data into budget decisions has yielded significant results:

• Public Safety Optimization: Reduced background check staff without impacting street officers or community safety
• Emergency Communications: Avoided unnecessary hiring of 4-5 communication officers annually after data showed 95% emergency response level already achieved
• Initiative Funding: Dramatic reduction in unfounded initiative requests as departments had to demonstrate strategic benefits and performance impacts
• Program Elimination: Data-driven decisions to eliminate internal employee health services program, using nearby Duke University Medical Center

These changes haven't simply cut costs but have eliminated duplication and spending that doesn't advance strategic priorities. The fire department's successful request for fire-inspection software exemplifies the new approach – demonstrating strategic benefits through personnel cost reduction, improved data reliability, and increased revenue efficiency.

City-County Collaboration

An unexpected benefit was cooperation between Durham city and county governments. Both entities used ClearPoint, enabling instant data sharing and coordinated efforts. This partnership has produced six joint initiatives, including a CPR defibrillator training program that trained over 1,700 Durham Public Schools students and won the Alliance for Innovation's Award for Excellence in Local Government.

Recognition and Awards

Durham's data-driven approach has earned numerous accolades:

• ICMA Center for Performance Measurement Certificate of Distinction Award
• "Citizen Engaged Community" designation
• Maintained triple-A bond rating through economic challenges
• Multiple "best of" rankings for wage increases, retirement, sustainability, and quality of life

Key Success Factors

Metcalfe identifies several elements crucial to Durham's successful performance management transformation:

1. Time Savings: Employees who experienced both pre- and post-ClearPoint operations became strong advocates after seeing dramatic efficiency improvements
2. Data Integration: The ability to link performance measures to budget requests, employee evaluations, and business goals created a truly integrated system
3. Unified Platform: Moving from 22 Excel files with over 100 tabs to a single system eliminated confusion and improved data quality
4. Leadership Commitment: Consistent support from city management and elected officials
5. Cultural Change: Shifting from counting widgets to measuring efficiency and effectiveness

As Metcalfe notes, "A big turning point for our performance management was getting a system that we could use to manage all that data. It's just easier. Less time putting numbers in a system and more time actually looking at the numbers and making decisions based on those."

Looking Forward

Durham's relationship with ClearPoint was evolving and expanding. Planned initiatives included:

• Unveiling a redesigned public dashboard
• Tracking American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) measures
• Expanding use of milestones and Gantt charts in the next strategic planning cycle
• Continuing to scale software capabilities with the city's growth

The city's experience showed that strategic planning and performance management is an iterative process requiring continuous learning and adaptation. As Budget Director Bertha Johnson observed, the recession actually benefited Durham by forcing the realization that not every service could be a priority – a lesson that guided their data-driven approach.

Lessons Learned

Durham's experience offers valuable insights for other municipalities:

1. Initial setbacks aren't failures: The retreat from ClearPoint led to a stronger, more sustainable implementation
2. Technology alone isn't enough: Success requires organizational buy-in, dedicated resources, and cultural change
3. Start somewhere and iterate: Perfect shouldn't be the enemy of good in performance management
4. Link data to decisions: Staff engagement increases when they see their data influencing important outcomes
5. Transparency builds trust: Public dashboards create accountability and strengthen community relationships
6. Collaboration multiplies impact: Shared systems between city and county governments can break down traditional silos

Conclusion

The City of Durham's partnership with ClearPoint Strategy represented more than a technology implementation – it was a transformation in how a city operates. By combining software with committed leadership, dedicated resources, and a culture of continuous improvement, Durham created a model for municipal performance management that delivered measurable results for its residents.

As Jay Reinstein, Strategic Plan Project Manager, summarizes: "With data now driving decision making, it's all about results." This focus on results, supported by the right tools and processes, helped Durham fulfill its mission of being "a great place to live, work, and play" while maintaining fiscal discipline and operational excellence.

The city's story showed that while the path to becoming a truly data-driven organization may include challenges and course corrections, the destination – transparent, efficient, and effective governance – was worth the effort.