Bay Mills Indian Community

Bay Mills Indian Community, a federally recognized Anishinaabe tribal government headquartered in Brimley, Michigan, serves as a federal grant recipient delivering comprehensive community services including healthcare, environmental protection, public safety, economic development, cultural preservation, and social services to tribal members and the surrounding rural community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The tribe operates primarily as a federal grant recipient rather than a federal contractor, with an 84% split toward prime grant awards and a 16% sub-award footprint, competing full-and-open across civilian and tribal-serving federal agencies without set-aside category designations.

Bay Mills' federal grant portfolio spans 356 prime grants and 66 grant sub-awards, with the most recent activity in September 2026. The top customer agencies by award count are the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (33 awards), the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (21 awards), the Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service (21 awards), and the Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (19 awards). These four agencies represent roughly 30% of the tribe's award volume. The EPA Region 5 office carries significant grant activity in environmental and brownfields remediation work, while the Administration on Aging funds elder services and nutrition programs. Bay Mills also receives federal contracts from the U.S. Coast Guard; two definitive contracts for dental operatory usage in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan totaled $72 thousand (awarded June 2025 and September 2026).

Representative recipient grants illustrate Bay Mills' service scope. The EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program (CFDA 66.046) awarded $17.3 million on January 1, 2025 to install 11 MW of solar arrays and a 5 MWh battery energy storage system on tribal lands, with a sub-award to Bay Mills Community College for workforce development training in solar installation and maintenance, extending through December 31, 2029. The Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance funded the Violence Against Women Act Special Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction initiative at $575 thousand (October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2028; CFDA 16.596) to establish legal and operational capacity for prosecution of non-Native offenders committing domestic violence, sexual assault, and related crimes within the tribe's jurisdiction. The Department of Housing and Urban Development Indian Housing Block Grants program awarded $2 million on December 6, 2024 for community development, housing, and infrastructure initiatives through November 2029. The USDA Rural Housing Service awarded $105.7 thousand under the Rural Housing Preservation Grants program (CFDA 10.433, August 30, 2026) to repair and rehabilitate dwellings for very low- and low-income rural residents, performance extending through October 30, 2027. The Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal Courts program (CFDA 15.029) provided a $169 thousand Cooperative Agreement (March 27, 2025 to March 27, 2030) for tribal judicial system development and violence prevention programming.

Bay Mills also receives formula grants supporting elder services, nutrition, child care, and environmental capacity building. The Administration on Aging funds three recurring programs: Older Americans Act Title VI Part A grants for elder supportive and nutrition services ($109.1 thousand, April 2026 to March 2029), Older Americans Act Title VI Part C grants for Native American caregiver support, and the Nutrition Services Incentive Program. The Office of Child Care awards both formula and block grants for child care development subsidies and quality improvement. The EPA funds brownfields response program capacity, tribal air quality training, household hazardous waste collection, and water quality protection under multiple formula grants (CERCLA Section 128(a), CFDA 66.809) and Cooperative Agreements (Brownfields Multipurpose and Assessment, CFDA 66.818), with two awards in 2024 and ongoing work through 2027 and 2028.

Sub-award engagement flows primarily through Michigan state agencies. Bay Mills receives pass-through grants from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for tribal behavioral health initiatives, tribal victim services, and public health emergency preparedness support (multiple awards, October 2023 to present). The Michigan Department of Education allocates USDA nutrition program funding to Bay Mills. The tribe also serves as a sub-recipient under Boys & Girls Clubs of America for youth mentoring and diabetes prevention programming (recurring awards from March 2022 onward), and under Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council for health equity and chronic disease prevention initiatives.

Award activity peaked in 2023 with 58 grants, declined to 32 in 2024 and 23 in 2025, with 11 awards in 2026 year-to-date. Twenty-five awards are scheduled for completion in the next twenty-four months, presenting recompete opportunity for health and human services, justice, environmental, and aging-services programs where Bay Mills operates as incumbent recipient.