The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

Game-Changer: "One Tribe, One Focus"

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribal entity, is a vast and diverse organization. It spans over 10 counties with 12,000 associates across the reservation and is committed to strategy execution and performance management.

Brandie Holloway, Director of Strategy and ClearPoint advisory board member, explains how ClearPoint brings transparency and efficiency.

"This system keeps you finding operational efficiencies. Several of these opportunities have resulted in millions of dollars in savings!"

Watch the in-depth conversation about all things organization, automation, and implementation with ClearPoint co-founder Ted Jackson here!

About the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is a tribal nation headquartered in Durant, Oklahoma. Its reservation covers 10,864 square miles, encompassing eight whole counties and parts of five counties in southeastern Oklahoma. The Nation has more than 225,000 tribal members and more than 12,000 associates. The Nation is a sovereign nation offering opportunities for growth and prosperity. A Tribal Council governs, with one member elected from each of twelve districts. In September 2025, the Nation's newspaper reported the release of a strategic plan for fiscal years 2026 through 2030.

The Choctaw Nation

The Choctaw Nation’s business is split between seven main divisions:

• Commerce
• Strategic Development
• Tribal Services
• Integrated Services
• Finance
• Communications
• Legal and Compliance

Within these divisions are departments like health, housing, education, outreach services, cultural services, and even casino gaming. But the sheer number of projects - hundreds across departments, thousands across the entire tribe - became difficult to manage. Holloway recounts: “It’s so difficult to keep everybody aligned and focused when there are that many things happening across 10,000 [projects] at a time.”

“One Tribe, One Focus”

The organization restructured its strategic planning approach when the Strategic Development department was formed. Leadership saw the value in a strategic management process and in moving from individual departmental plans to one overall tribal plan. The strategic plan has five tribal strategies, and the strategic plan and development team of 18 keeps things aligned around common goals and resources.

“Other departments are now able to see the transparency of what’s on the entire strategic plan.”

Strategic plans were implemented across divisional and departmental levels. What was once a granular, bottom-up approach became a “wide-up,” or “departmental-up” approach. A centralized office of strategy brought more internal communication and made commonalities across strategic planning processes transparent. Choctaw Nation was able to reallocate resources and turn 10,000 projects into around 200.

Choctaw and ClearPoint

“ClearPoint really changed the way we look at our own organization of the strategic plans’ initiatives,” says Holloway. The new strategic plan was great: centralized goals now cascaded down into consolidated efforts, and it could all be managed in one place. ClearPoint software would automate processes and be tailored to the tribe’s wants and needs.

Choctaw Nation organizes its strategy in several scorecards in ClearPoint. The main scorecard holds the overall strategic plan, organized into five tribal strategies at the category level, then focus areas, then strategic objectives, where the “bulk of the work” is done. It houses project management capabilities, including over 200 strategic objectives across hundreds of businesses, programs, and services. Supplemental scorecards monitor certain items and track the organization’s legislative agenda and partnerships with government relations teams. A Strategic Projects scorecard contains “baby objectives.” These “mini departments” of strategy monitor smaller efforts, such as marketing, business, and operational plans, organizational restructures, and relationship-building processes. The Choctaw Nation adopted an Extended Rasci Matrix for its strategic plan, and ClearPoint’s custom fields let the organization use the nomenclature it knows well.

“It is game-changing… you can really do a lot with your reporting customization.”

The organization uses tagging across ClearPoint. Each month, 60-70 individualized reports are generated in ClearPoint and sent to specific leads within the tribe. Tags keep standardization organized across teams, and filtered Briefing Books let leads see only what they need to know or what might bring them value. According to Holloway, these customization options, even something as small as a personalized cover, result in a “very personal strategic reporting experience for our leadership.”

“We’ve really taken advantage of multiple functionalities of what ClearPoint’s capable for to customize how it’s going to make us more successful.”

A centralized office of strategy and ClearPoint together revealed many opportunities. Transparency among departments and a central location for data and management showed which projects and resources could be combined. Holloway remains inspired, noting changed mindsets of leadership.

The Future with ClearPoint?

Holloway’s goal in partnering with ClearPoint was to further automate Choctaw Nation’s monthly distribution process, taking full advantage of briefing books and HTML briefing capabilities. Buy-in across the entire organization was achieved through internal awareness campaigns, and the tribe was excited to make things more of a community focus in the future.

Special thanks to Brandie Holloway for sharing Choctaw Nation’s strategy efforts and their results. Check out other members of the ClearPoint Community Advisory Board.