Case Study: Cherokee Nation boosts citizen engagement and safer streets with Qualtrics

Cherokee Nation hears 16K citizen voices in 3 months with Qualtrics

Cherokee Nation, a sovereign tribal government, faced a challenge in hearing from its citizens at scale to guide public health decisions. Their traditional phone surveys reached only a few thousand predominantly older citizens annually, leaving out younger people and those living outside the area. Data was siloed and easily lost, creating a gap in understanding citizen needs that undermined their communal principle of "Gadugi."

Implementing the Qualtrics platform, the nation built a secure system where verified citizens could provide anonymous feedback. This shift to digital surveys, particularly via direct email, dramatically increased participation. Qualtrics enabled Cherokee Nation to collect 16,000 responses in three months—an 8x increase—and gather deeper preventative health insights. This data directly led to actionable projects like building a needed sidewalk, which improved citizen-reported walkability scores from 2.2 to 5.4 and reduced reports of unsafe sidewalks from 100% to 21%, rebuilding trust and demonstrating sovereignty through data control.

Cherokee Nation