Dallas Receives International Award for Using Public Communication To Achieve Outcomes and Inspire Progress

Office of Data Analytics and Business Intelligence Wins Results for America’s Sharman Stein Award for Storytelling Changemakers

Award Honors the Memory of What Works Cities’ Founding Director of Communications

WASHINGTON, DC  – Results for America announced today that the Office of Data Analytics and Business Intelligence (DBI) in the City of Dallas, Texas, will receive the sixth annual Sharman Stein Award for Storytelling Changemakers. The award, which honors the memory of What Works Cities’ founding Director of Communications Sharman Stein, recognizes a local government team that cultivates trust and collaboration between local government and residents through excellence in communications.

Stein devoted her career to promoting storytelling that drives positive change in local communities. At What Works Cities, she helped city leaders embrace data and evidence to make better decisions, and encouraged them to engage with residents to solve problems. Stein passed away from ovarian cancer in May 2018.

“Dallas’s data innovations are so much more than dashboards and resources, they are critical tools built for and by the people they serve to solve problems and make lives better,” said Michele Jolin, CEO and Co-founder of Results for America. 

Led by Dr. Brita Andercheck, the City’s first Chief Data Officer, the Office of Data Analytics and Business Intelligence was created in 2020. Since then, it has built more than 50 public data products supporting over 20 City departments. Today, the Office has grown into a team of 40 data and geospatial professionals responsible for creating data products that provide essential support to the City of Dallas and its residents.

“Storytelling and making data accessible to everyone is one of the most important things we do here at the City of Dallas. Communicating with our community through data stories is one of the most impactful ways to change how someone interacts with data about their City,” said Chief Data Officer Dr. Brita Andercheck. 

Successes include:

• Prioritizing equity in data products. To make public-facing dashboards more accessible to residents who have limited understanding of English, Dallas has added Spanish translations to their products including the City Manager Goals Dashboard, which allows Spanish-speaking residents to view the City’s initiatives and goals. 

• Combating human trafficking. The City created a dashboard that builds awareness of the problem of human trafficking in Dallas and developed an algorithm that helps identify high-risk cases. In 2023, 130 youth were recovered from human trafficking by the Dallas Police Department.

• Reducing traffic fatalities and severe injuries. By 2030, Dallas has a goal of zero traffic fatalities and a 50% reduction in serious injuries. DBI built a Vision Zero Dashboard to track crashes across the city to provide vital information to the Department of Transportation. In 2024, there have been 81 fewer severe crashes compared to the same period in 2023, a 15% decrease. 

The City of Dallas achieved Silver What Works Cities Certification, a Bloomberg Philanthropies initiative led by Results for America that recognizes cities for their exceptional use of data to inform policy, allocate funding, improve services and engage residents. 

About What Works Cities Certification:

The What Works Cities Certification program, launched in 2017 by Bloomberg Philanthropies and led by Results for America, is the first-of-its-kind standard of excellence for data-informed, well-managed local government. What Works Cities Certification recognizes and celebrates local governments for their exceptional use of data to inform policy decisions, allocate funding, improve services, evaluate the effectiveness of programs and engage residents.

About Results for America:

Results for America is helping decision-makers at all levels of government harness evidence and data to make progress on our greatest challenges. Our mission is to make investing in what works the “new normal,” so that when policymakers make decisions, they start by seeking the best evidence and data available, then use what they find to get better results.

Media Contacts:

Cheryl Burnett, Results for America, [email protected]

Rick Ericson, City of Dallas, [email protected]