Northern Cheyenne Tribe

Northern Cheyenne Tribe, doing business as Northern Cheyenne Fire Protection Dept., a federally recognized tribal government headquartered in Lame Deer, Montana, serves as a prime recipient of federal grants across health, safety, workforce development, transportation, and environmental programs, with 93% of recent awards operating as prime grants rather than subrecipient arrangements. The Tribe operates on a 447,000-acre reservation with approximately 4,667 residents and competes in full-and-open federal grant funding with no set-aside restrictions; all recent awards carry no set-aside designations.

The Tribe's grant portfolio spans more than sixty distinct federal agencies with particular depth in domestic social services and tribal infrastructure. The top funding sources by award count—the Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs (51 awards), the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (47 awards), and the Environmental Protection Agency (35 awards)—together represent roughly one-third of all recent awards. By potential dollar value, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission dominates at $418 thousand across 15 annual Tribal Employment Rights Office (TERO) contracts ($30,000 to $33,000 per year running through 2026), followed by the Indian Health Service with $229 thousand across 10 awards including utilities and facility purchases. Representative grant work includes a $17.63 million Federal Highway Administration Rebuilding American Infrastructure and Equity (RAISE) grant for the Rosebud Cut-Across US 212 to MT 39 transportation project (completion June 2031), a $1.60 million Federal Emergency Management Agency Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities award for hazard mitigation (completion November 2026), a $999,999 Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance grant for a DUI treatment court program (completion September 2030), and a $535,000 Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women grant for the Healing Hearts sexual assault services program (completion December 2028).

Health, family services, and workforce development grants cluster around the Administration for Community Living, which funds Older Americans Act nutrition and caregiver support programs (three formula grants, FY 2026–2029), and the Employment and Training Administration, which has awarded multiple Native American Employment and Training Program grants totaling over $1 million combined for career services, occupational training, and follow-up support. The Tribe also receives recurring formula grants from the Office of Child Care for child care subsidies and development services ($1.98 million block grant FY 2025–2028), the Office of Community Services for low-income home energy assistance ($1.04 million FY 2025–2027), and the Administration on Children and Families for child welfare and family stability programs. Transportation grants from the Federal Highway Administration support tribal infrastructure across multiple fiscal years, with a $1.73 million award in December 2025 and prior-year allocations totaling millions more. Environmental work includes EPA grants for water quality monitoring, nonpoint source management, brownfields remediation, and climate mitigation planning, as well as cultural resource work under the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management for Sand Creek Massacre consultation and archaeological training.

The Tribe has also received grants for behavioral health and substance-abuse prevention: a $999,999 opioid treatment and recovery grant from SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (completion September 2029), a grant for suicide prevention among Native youth ages 10–24 from SAMHSA's Center for Mental Health Services (completion September 2029), and a $999,999 grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance for a tribal reentry and restorative justice program (completion September 2029). Law enforcement capacity-building has included $477,770 and $118,864 in COPS Office public safety grants for hiring and equipment support (completion dates 2027–2029). Public broadband infrastructure was funded at $29.5 million by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for fiber deployment to 1,730 unserved Native American households (completion October 2027), and economic development planning has been supported by the Economic Development Administration at $306,000 for a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (completion September 2025).

Subrecipient activity represents 7% of recent awards, flowing primarily through Montana state agencies. The Tribe receives subawards from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services for FDPIR (Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations), WIC, and IV-E child welfare services, from the Montana Office of Public Instruction for school nutrition programs, and from the Montana Department of Transportation for road safety initiatives. Recent grant activity has declined modestly—from 35 awards in 2022 to 24 in 2025 and 5 year-to-date in 2026—though the portfolio remains stable with 31 awards facing completion and recompete within the next twenty-four months.