Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board

Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board, doing business as Gptchb, is a tribally owned, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and federal grant recipient that delivers culturally rooted public health support, healthcare advocacy, and behavioral health services to American Indian and Alaska Native communities across the four-state Great Plains area of South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa. Founded in 1986 as a formal representative board of seventeen federally recognized tribal nations and one service unit, Gptchb operates as prime recipient on federal grants across behavioral health crisis response, substance use disorder treatment and prevention, disease surveillance and epidemiology, chronic disease management, and maternal and early childhood health initiatives. The organization is based in Rapid City, South Dakota and administers Oyate Health Center, a tribally managed walk-in clinic serving over 22,200 active users across urgent care, primary preventive services, and behavioral health.

Gptchb's federal grant footprint centers on the Department of Health and Human Services, which funds the vast majority of its work. Recent representative grants include a $1,092,343 award from SAMHSA's Center for Mental Health Services (CFDA 93.00R) for the Great Plains 988 Tribal Response program (performance through September 2029) to strengthen South Dakota's crisis response system for AI/AN communities; a $500,000 cooperative agreement from the Administration for Community Living (CFDA 93.470) for the Mindful Connections Program expanding dementia training and respite services across the four-state region (through September 2028); a cooperative agreement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the Connecting Kids to Coverage program to enroll eligible AI/AN children and families in Medicaid and CHIP across forty South Dakota counties (2025–2030); and a cooperative agreement from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion for the Great Plains Good Health and Wellness Program addressing obesity, tobacco use, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke among GPA tribes (through September 2029). Additional recent awards address opioid response and prevention, HIV/hepatitis C/syphilis elimination, maternal and infant home visiting, youth suicide prevention and intervention, trauma and violence prevention, and cancer screening and early detection. Gptchb also receives sub-awards as a partner investigator or implementation site; recent sub-awards include work under Emory University on smoke-free homes in rural AI/AN households (2024–2026), the University of Colorado on suicide reduction among urban AI/AN youth, and South Dakota School of Mines & Technology on a produce prescription program for diabetes prevention.

Federal customer concentration is heavily weighted to HHS. The Department of Health and Human Services Indian Health Service anchors 64 awards with $3.7 million in combined potential value, while SAMHSA's Center for Mental Health Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services each fund multiple concurrent initiatives. Over the past five years, Gptchb has averaged six to eight new prime grants annually, declining to two new awards in 2026 to date. Ten awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating recompete exposure. Gptchb operates exclusively as a federal grant recipient rather than a federal contractor; it has no federal prime contracts, no IDV seats on government-wide vehicles, and no contracting relationships. All federal awards are grants or cooperative agreements—mechanisms aligned with its 501(c)(3) tribal structure and mission-driven public health delivery to sovereign tribal nations.