IGD Database Search

Thumbnail or cover image
California Fee-to-Trust Consortium

California Fee-to-Trust Consortium

The loss of traditional land is a source of longstanding trauma for Native nations. It has far reaching consequences that began at the time of dispossession and persist today. Many tribes struggle to regain territory in order to support the basic needs of their citizens – housing, economic…

Thumbnail or cover image
The Ya Ne Dah Ah School (Chickaloon): Melding Traditional Teachings with Modern Curricula

The Ya Ne Dah Ah School (Chickaloon): Melding Traditional Teachings with Modern Curricula

For many generations, education in American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) communities has been controlled by sources external to the communities and the people themselves. Large bureaucratic agencies, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) or public school systems overseen…

Thumbnail or cover image
Mille Lacs' Small Business Development Program

Mille Lacs' Small Business Development Program

The Small Business Development Program assists Band members in developing the private sector economy by providing low-interest loans up to $75,000 to businesses that are at least 60 percent owned and operated by Band members located on or near the Reservation. The Program offers both "micro" loans…

Thumbnail or cover image
Coquille: Southwest Oregon Research Project (SWORP)

Coquille: Southwest Oregon Research Project (SWORP)

Driven by the belief that possessing historical documents and archival collections is essential for cultural self-determination, the Coquille Indian Tribe partnered with the University of Oregon and the Smithsonian Institution to launch the Southwest Oregon Research Project (SWORP) in 1995. Through…

Thumbnail or cover image
2000 Honoring Nations: Tribes of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Management

Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission's Treaty Rights/National Forest MOU

The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), a tribally chartered intertribal agency, negotiated a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the US Forest Service that both recognizes and implements treaty-guaranteed hunting, fishing, and gathering rights under tribal regulations and…

Thumbnail or cover image
Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Land Title and Records Office

Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Land Title and Records Office

With the ultimate goal of seeing a time when Native people and nations once again own and manage the land within the boundaries of every reservation as well as those lands that are culturally important to them beyond reservations, the Tribal Land Title and Records Office keeps all records and…

Thumbnail or cover image
Trust Resource Management (Salish and Kootenai)

Trust Resource Management (Salish and Kootenai)

For more than three decades, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) have been building capable governing institutions and taking over management of resources and programs previously managed by outsiders. Recognizing that self-management both allows the tribal government to determine its…

Thumbnail or cover image
Yakama Nation Land Enterprise

Yakama Nation Land Enterprise

In an effort to consolidate, regulate, and control Indian land holdings, the financially self-sustaining Yakama Nation Land Enterprise has successfully acquired more than 90% of all the fee lands within the Nation’s closed area — lands which were previously highly "checker-boarded." The Enterprise’…

Thumbnail or cover image
Northern Cheyenne Constitutional Reform

Northern Cheyenne Constitutional Reform

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe is a sovereign nation. It is a federally-recognized Indian tribe with powers and authority to govern the activities of its members. The Tribe is governed by a Constitution and Bylaws first adopted on November 23, 1935. In the early 1990s, in order to meet the…

Thumbnail or cover image
Gila River Indian Community Air Quality Program

Gila River Indian Community Air Quality Program

In recent years, tribal governments in the United States have passed sophisticated laws and regulations to manage social and economic development in their communities. Although air quality is an important aspect of both economic growth and human health, very few Native nations have successfully…

Thumbnail or cover image
Pte Hca Ka, Inc. (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe)

Pte Hca Ka, Inc. (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe)

This tribally chartered corporation developed a culturally compatible management system for reestablishing buffalo as a focal point for socio-economic development, community cohesion, and self-determination. Pte Hca Ka, Inc. operates a mobile meat processing facility, and is currently seeking…

Thumbnail or cover image
Navajo's Pine Hill Health Center

Navajo's Pine Hill Health Center

In the Ramah Chapter of the Navajo Nation–as in many parts of Indian Country–late detection of breast cancer leads to disproportionally high rates of breast cancer mortality. Ramah Navajo’s Pine Hill Health Center devised a creative response: it launched a series of "Mammo Days," educational and…

Thumbnail or cover image
Rosebud Sioux Tribal Education Department and Code

Rosebud Sioux Tribal Education Department and Code

Responding to disproportionately low academic attendance, achievement, and attainment levels, the Tribe created an education department (TED) in 1990 and developed a Code that regulates and coordinates various aspects of the tribal schools, public schools, and federally-funded Indian education…

Thumbnail or cover image
Oneida Nation Farms

Oneida Nation Farms

In the 1820s, a portion of the Oneida people of New York moved to Wisconsin, where they took up their accustomed practices as farmers. Over the next hundred years, the Oneida Nation lost nearly all its lands and much of its own agrarian tradition. In 1978, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin established…

Thumbnail or cover image
The Menominee Community Center of Chicago: Creating an Innovative Partnership Between Urban and Reservation Communities

The Menominee Community Center of Chicago: Creating an Innovative Partnership Between Urban and Reservation Communities

Over half of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin lives off-reservation. Regrettably, the ties between the Menominee’s reservation and urban populations, like those between the split populations of so many Indian nations, have been tenuous for decades. In 1994, a group…

Thumbnail or cover image
Umatilla Basin Salmon Recovery Project

Umatilla Basin Salmon Recovery Project

The Umatilla Basin Salmon Recovery Project has successfully restored salmon to the Umatilla River, where they had been absent for nearly 70 years, while also protecting the local irrigated agriculture economy. Partnering with local irrigators and community leaders, the tribe undertook a…

Thumbnail or cover image
Osage Nation Governmental Reform Initiative

Osage Nation Governmental Reform Initiative

At the turn of the 20th century, the US government abolished the 1881 Osage Nation Constitution and imposed rules for land ownership and citizenship. Many Osage citizens were disenfranchised and the Tribal Council was granted only limited powers, which lead to years of weak government, corruption,…

Thumbnail or cover image
Swinomish Cooperative Land Use Program

Swinomish Cooperative Land Use Program

Based on a memorandum of agreement between the Tribe and Skagit County, the Swinomish Cooperative Land Use Program provides a framework for conducting permitting activities within the boundaries of the "checkerboarded" reservation and offers a forum for resolving potential conflicts. The process,…

Thumbnail or cover image
Sovereignty and Peoplehood

Sovereignty and Peoplehood

The term "sovereignty" perplexes students of the American Indian policy perhaps more than any other concept. The word comes from the Old French soverain or souverein and was usually used in reference to a king or lord who had the undisputed right to make decisions and act accordingly with or…

Thumbnail or cover image
Coast Salish Gathering

Coast Salish Gathering

Ecosystems in many parts of North America are under severe stress. Pollution, the overuse of natural resources, and habitat destruction threaten local flora and fauna. Conservation attempts often fall short because they target one species of site within an ecosystem. The Coast Salish Gathering…