Leech Lake Band Of Ojibwe

Leech Lake Band Of Ojibwe, doing business as Leech Lake Tribal Council, is a federally recognized American Indian tribe headquartered in Cass Lake, Minnesota, that operates as a prime recipient of federal grants and contracts across healthcare, environmental stewardship, workforce development, child welfare, and community services—with 76% of recent awards as a prime recipient and 24% as a sub-recipient of Minnesota state agencies administering federal pass-through grants. The tribe competes full-and-open; no set-aside designations appear across its prime contract footprint, though it qualifies for tribal set-asides and Indian Incentive Program benefits under USDA food procurement.

The Leech Lake Band Of Ojibwe's federal work splits distinctly between a small contract portfolio and a substantial grant portfolio. On the contract side, recent prime awards include a $2.9 million definitive contract from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service to supply traditionally-harvested wild rice (160,000 pounds in 25/1-pound packages sourced from the 2025 harvest, mechanically parched using wood, delivered quarterly April–July 2026 to Henderson County, Colorado and Syracuse, New York, under the Indian Incentive Program with preferential consideration); a $1.946 million contract from USDA Food and Nutrition Service for wild rice procurement to the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (65,000 pounds delivered to Missouri and Arkansas, December 2024–May 2025); a $500,000 definitive contract from the Indian Health Service (base plus three option years through February 2029) for behavioral transport, community navigator, peer recovery specialist, and healthcare-related services; and recurring $32,000–$33,000 annual contracts from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for Tribal Employment Rights Ordinance (TERO) services on the Leech Lake Reservation. A single $10,000 purchase order from the Indian Health Service covers solid waste recycling and disposal services in Cass Lake through August 2030. None of these contracts sit on blanket purchase agreements, GWACs, or agency-wide IDIQs; the tribe competes direct awards or small task orders.

The grant portfolio dwarfs contract work and anchors the tribe's federal engagement. Recent prime grant recipients include a $19.999 million EPA Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grant (Inflation Reduction Act; March 2025; completion May 2025) for a Tribal Resilience Hub integrating environmental stewardship with cultural preservation, wild rice harvesting, medicinal plant programs, green infrastructure, and electric vehicle/bicycle charging; a $4.895 million Head Start award from the Office of Head Start (April 2026–March 2031) for American Indian Head Start and Early Head Start services across 864,000+ acres spanning Cass, Hubbard, Beltrami, and Itasca Counties; a $2.051 million Federal Transit Administration Formula Grant (June 2025–June 2027) for public transit operations on the Leech Lake Reservation (two deviated fixed routes to Bemidji and Grand Rapids, seven dial-a-ride routes, driver wages, fuel, maintenance); a $1.888 million USDA Forest Service Inflation Reduction Act Landscape Scale Restoration grant (January 2025–December 2027) for carbon project development and cost-sharing with private forest landowners; a $1.1 million Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women Discretionary Grant (October 2023–September 2026) for victim counseling, community education, and sexual assault/domestic violence investigator support; and a $900,000 DOJ Community Oriented Policing Services grant (October 2023–September 2026) for community policing equipment and training. The tribe also receives annual formula awards from the Department of Health and Human Services for child care, child welfare, child support enforcement, Native Employment Works, Older Americans Act Title VI, and nutrition services; EPA Region 5 funding for brownfield response, superfund site oversight, air quality monitoring, and environmental capacity building; and USDA Food and Nutrition Service funding for the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) and nutrition education.

Customer concentration reflects the tribe's tribal-government and community-services posture. The Environmental Protection Agency leads by award count with 56 awards, followed by HHS Administration for Children and Families (51 awards) and HHS Public Health Service (40 awards). On potential value, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service dominates with $4.8 million combined value across 20 awards, followed by the Indian Health Service ($1.8 million, 35 awards) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ($375 thousand, 14 awards). The EPA's concentration comes from recurring environmental program grants (brownfield response, air quality, water quality, waste management). The HHS concentration spans recurring child welfare, child care, child support, and elder services block grants and formula grants. The top five customer agencies by award count cover 28% of all awards; the top five by potential value cover 96% of combined potential value, indicating that most awards are sub-threshold grants but a handful of large federal food and health grants anchor the dollars.

The tribe acts as a sub-recipient on roughly 189 awards (24% of portfolio), predominantly through Minnesota Department of Human Services and Minnesota Department of Commerce pass-through grants for child care, TANF, mental health block grants, substance-abuse prevention, energy assistance, nutrition education, and community services. Notable sub-awardees include the Regents of the University of Minnesota (chronic wasting disease surveillance grant), the National Fund For Excellence In American Indian Education (Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School Ojibwe language instruction and digital library), and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (conifer sapling planting for climate mitigation).

Activity has contracted year over year: 44 awards in 2022, 82 in 2023, 70 in 2024, 41 in 2025, and 17 in 2026 (a partial-year snapshot as of mid-September 2026). Combined obligated dollars across all awards total $446 million against a combined potential value of $7.3 million, indicating that most award values in the source reflect historical obligated amounts rather than current ceilings. The recompete cliff shows 28 awards (combined potential value $245 thousand) with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months, posing modest recompete risk concentrated in TERO, FDPIR, and environmental formula grants.

The Leech Lake Reservation Business Committee Inc. operates as a subsidiary, also tribally owned and federally recognized. The tribe's federal footprint mirrors its governance structure: a tribal government operating human services, environmental resource management, transportation, and cultural programs funded through formula grants and direct tribal-government awards rather than competitive contracts or defense procurement. The absence of federal contracts on GWACs, IDIQs, or agency schedules and the dominance of HHS and EPA formula funding reflect the tribe's status as a self-determined tribal government recipient delivering services to its members and reservation community rather than a federal contractor competing in open markets.