The Cherokee Nation has tapped Salesforce to help the tribal nation distribute $785 million in COVID-19 Federal relief funds from the American Rescue Plan.
Salesforce will serve as the technology platform for the Tribal nation’s Gadugi Portal. The Gadugi Portal, which means “working together,” is used by the Cherokee Nation to engage with its citizens. The Tribal nation using the portal to manage updated addresses and house the application supporting the distribution of $785 million in COVID-19 assistance payments to Cherokee citizens.
With the portal, eligible Cherokee Nation citizens can submit an application to receive a $2,000 payment to help recover from the impacts of COVID-19. Since launching earlier this month, the portal has hosted 80,000 registrants on its first day and has had more than 200,000 registrants to date. The portal has also supported nearly 150,000 applications.
With Salesforce as the technology partner, Cherokee Nation citizens can log into the online portal built on Salesforce’s Experience Cloud. The portal then guides them through the application process. According to the Cherokee Nation, data gathered via the application purpose is captured in a personalized, profile-like record in Service Cloud, which government employees use to review the person’s information, confirm eligibility, and issue the direct relief funding.
“The Cherokee Nation wants to ensure we have the programs in place with our American Rescue Funding to help every citizen. The Gadugi Portal and Salesforce technology is helping us get to our citizens quicker by streamlining the application process, and enabling us to have updated records that are online and easily accessible to our citizens to truly help them recover in their greatest time of need,” said Chuck Hoskin Jr., Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Outside of its immediate use as part of the COVID-19 recovery plan, the Cherokee Nation says the Gadugi Portal gives the Tribal nation “the ability to improve experiences for its citizens in the future through the digitization of other services, such as future COVID-19 program applications and permitting for tribal vehicle license plate tags and other services.”
