Lakes & Prairies Community Action Partnership, Inc.

Lakes & Prairies Community Action Partnership, Inc., a tax-exempt nonprofit based in Moorhead, Minnesota, operates primarily as a federal grant recipient (30% of awards as prime recipient) and subrecipient (70%) focused on homelessness prevention, youth housing support, child care administration, refugee services, and volunteer tax assistance delivery across Minnesota and North Dakota. The organization has received $119.9 million in combined federal obligation across 133 awards since 2008, with recent grant work anchored to HUD homelessness programs and state pass-through funding from Minnesota and North Dakota human services departments.

Lakes & Prairies' federal footprint concentrates heavily on two HUD grant programs and related state subrecipient work. The Department of Housing and Urban Development's Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development (HUD-CPD) has awarded the organization multiple Continuum of Care (CoC) Program grants (CFDA 14.267), including a $228,573 project grant effective October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026, and a prior $207,812 CoC award for October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2025. Most recently, on April 1, 2026, HUD-CPD awarded Lakes & Prairies a $728,870 Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP, CFDA 14.276) project grant running through September 30, 2028, targeting unaccompanied youth and pregnant or parenting youth aged 24 and younger in Moorhead. The YHDP award covers eleven eligible activity categories: property acquisition and rehabilitation, new construction, leasing, rental assistance (short-, medium-, and long-term), supportive services, operating costs of supportive housing, Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) implementation, program administration, and relocation assistance. Alongside HUD grants, Lakes & Prairies has received recurring Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) grants from the Internal Revenue Service (CFDA 21.006) to deliver tax preparation services to low-to-moderate-income taxpayers, with awards in October 2023, October 2024, and October 2025, each running one fiscal year.

The organization's subrecipient activity, representing 70% of awards, flows primarily through state pass-through grants from the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families, with some North Dakota subrecipient work. Recent subrecipient awards include child-care administration and development (CFDA 93.575, multiple tranches from Minnesota DHS through July 2025), refugee social services, SNAP administration and employment and training (SNAP E&T), Community Services Block Grant funding (CSBG), and emergency shelter grants. In July 2025 alone, Lakes & Prairies received four subrecipient awards—three for child-care administration from Minnesota DHS and one from North Dakota DHS for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CFDA 93.575). A Head Start and Early Head Start project grant (effective December 1, 2024 through November 30, 2029) from HUD's Office of Head Start adds early childhood education to the portfolio.

Award volume has been steady but declining in recent years. The organization received 15 awards in 2022, 20 in 2023, 19 in 2024, 10 in 2025, and 1 in 2026 (as of April 1). Five awards reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating modest recompete pressure. Customer concentration sits with HUD-CPD (28 awards) and the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (57 awards split across three line items in the top-customer block), accounting for 71% of the award count. Lakes & Prairies operates exclusively in the grant space with no federal contract vehicles, no IDIQs or GWACs, and no sub-awards as a subcontractor to federal prime contractors. The organization's federal work is geographically anchored to Minnesota and North Dakota but serves as a nonprofit implementing partner for state administering agencies cascading federal grant dollars.