Tribal Leaders Program, Harvard Business School, June 2024

NCAI is committed to building and protecting tribal sovereignty, supporting healthy tribal governments, and fostering vibrant tribal communities. Central to that task is equipping tribal leaders with the knowledge, skills, tools, and strategies they need to advance those fundamental priorities on behalf of their Tribal Nations.

In 2023, NCAI developed and administered two interconnected initiatives to provide intensive professional development and leadership training to Indian Country. Learn more about these two programs below.

Leading Tribal Nations Executive 
Education Program at Harvard Business School

In collaboration with Harvard Business School, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) offers the Leading Tribal Nations Program, designed to equip tribal leaders with the knowledge and skills needed to advance their capacity for strategic governance. During the five-day program, tribal leaders will engage in collaborative learning and problem-solving through the case-study model facilitated on the Harvard Business School campus.

 $2,500 per participant, which includes lodging at Harvard Business School, meals, and amenities on all participant days. 

 airfare or lodging before or after the program ends.

The program is designed for elected tribal leaders. Non-elected leaders and tribal professionals may apply, but elected tribal leaders in good standing will receive preference.

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, and the 

Media Training and Communications Fellowship

Hosted at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at ASU., this fellowship will provide targeted learning and hands-on practice to tribal leaders and professionals who wish to increase their communication skills and expand their media presence to meet their community needs. Curriculum will be tailored to, and facilitated by, Native voices with knowledge of the unique media landscape of Indian Country.

This program is open to tribal leaders, aspiring leaders and communications professionals. Elected tribal leaders will be granted first priority. 

Building public speaking strategies and confidence

Effective storytelling to advance policy and community initiatives

Navigating diverse interview environments

Identifying how to address challenges facing communities

Developing and delivering effective messages across multiple platforms

Creating and maintaining relationships with news media

Understanding how to tailor messages to particular audiences

After learning each new skill, fellows will have the chance to practice public speaking in a professional audio-visual studio. All fellows will be provided with recordings from the learning experience to review their progress.

May 28-30, 2025 at the Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Price includes four nights of lodging and breakfast, lunch and snack on all participant days.


The Empowering Leaders Series is made possible through the generous support of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. NCAI deeply appreciates San Manuel’s essential role in establishing and sustaining the endowment that supports the growth and empowerment of tribal leaders across Indian Country.

Empowering Leaders

In recent decades, tribes have witnessed the negative impact of a lack of both judicial diversity and knowledge of federal Indian law on tribal sovereignty and the ability of tribes to self-govern. Recent federal-court decisions have undermined longstanding Indian policy in crucial areas, including tribal adjudicative authority over non-Indians; the power of tribal governments to tax certain activities by non-Indians on tribal lands; the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to take land into trust for tribes; and the scope of the federal government’s trust responsibility to Indians. Whether done consciously or not, the federal judiciary has succeeded in dismantling favorable precedent and creating new law that disregards tribal sovereignty and will harm tribal interests if applied in future cases.

In response to disastrous court opinions and legislative attacks on the status of tribal governments, tribal leaders formed the Tribal Sovereignty Protection Initiative (TSPI) in September, 2001. Tribal leaders structured the TSPI as four separate components: the Legislative Committee, the Tribal Supreme Court Project, the Federal Judicial Selection Project, and the Education and Public Outreach Committee—all working together toward the common goal to protect tribal sovereignty. Under this framework, tribal leaders, attorneys, and other experts have coordinated and developed an array of educational, legal, political, and grassroots strategies.

One of TSPI’s key components, on which NCAI continues to work daily, is the NCAI Project on the Judiciary. The Project is a comprehensive effort that has primarily focused on ensuring that the federal judiciary is composed of judges that understand federal Indian law and the contours of tribal sovereignty. The Project has hosted several groundbreaking meetings between tribal leaders and federal appellate judges. However, with the current dearth of Native judges on the federal bench, the Project recently expanded its outreach and education campaign in tribal communities and judicial circles in hopes of getting more Native attorneys involved in the judicial selection process.

NCAI will continue to work toward fulfillment of the Project’s goals by expanding its outreach and educational efforts and ensuring that qualified Native American candidates are given fair consideration during the federal judicial selection process.

For more information on the NCAI Project on the Judiciary, please visit 

Project on the Judiciary

Ending the Era of Harmful Native “Themed” Mascots

NCAI's Longstanding Opposition to Harmful Native "Themed" Sports Mascots

As the nation's oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native advocacy organization, NCAI has long held a clear position against derogatory and harmful stereotypes of Native people—including sports mascots—in media and popular culture. Since NCAI launched its campaign to address stereotypes of Native people in popular culture, media, and sports in 1968, 

 in pursuit of ending the era of unsanctioned Native “themed” mascots.

NCAI's position is clear, longstanding, and deeply rooted in our 78 years as a leading voice for Indian Country — we advocate for and protect the civil rights, social justice, and racial equity of all Native people in all parts of American society.

NCAI's Work to Retire Unsanctioned Native "Themed" Mascots

NCAI is the oldest, largest, and most representative national organization sharing the unified voice of hundreds of Tribal Nations representing millions of Native people, and that voice has been consistent and clear for decades: unsanctioned sports mascots are symbols of disrespect that degrade, mock, and harm Native people, particularly Native youth. NCAI’s work to retire “Indian” or Native “themed” mascots, used interchangeably, is guided by our numerous resolutions pertaining to cultural appropriation and the harmful effects of these mascots. These resolutions—passed via consensus among NCAI membership—emphasize the importance of education by means of tribally-informed curriculum, such that stereotypical appropriation gives way to sanctioned representation. For decades, NCAI largely focused its efforts on ending Native “themed” mascots at the professional level, directing specific attention to the former mascot of the NFL’s Washington "Commanders". In 2020, NCAI formally expanded the initiative to include work at the K-12 level, which included the development of a National School Mascot Tracking Database. In 2021, NCAI further expanded the initiative to include work at the state level, developing a State Activity Tracker and engaging directly with state legislatures pursuing mascot bans through legislation.

NCAI’s Ending “Indian” Mascots initiative currently focuses on three primary levels: the K-12 school level, the state level, and the professional sports level.

Proud To Be

The mission of the TIBC is: to provide an advisory government-to-government forum and process for Tribes and the Department to develop budgets that allow for the fulfillment of tribes' self-determination, self-governance, sovereignty, and treaty rights, as well as sufficient levels of funding to address the needs of Tribes and their tribal citizens.

Below is information about the upcoming TIBC meeting:

The next TIBC meeting will be held in the Eastern Oklahoma Region at a location TBD. 

26 IAM 3 – Distribution of Resources Signed

The Indian Affairs Manual (IAM) for distribution of resources (26 IAM 3 – Distribution of Resources) has been finalized and signed. The IAM provides guidance to all Indian Affairs staff on fund distribution processes, including standard timelines for fund processing for direct appropriations to Indian Affairs for Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), and Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs (AS-IA) programs. The Manual establishes a consistent process throughout Indian Affairs for distributing funds to tribal nations. There is a link within the IAM that takes you to several attachments that show examples of various forms used in the distribution processes, flow charts of the overall processes, and templates for individual programs that describe the methodology and calculations used for all funding that is distributed to tribal nations. This effort was completed to ensure standard approaches at all levels within Indian Affairs that will lead to improved efficiency and timeliness in the distribution of funds to tribal nations. All offices and programs are expected to use the processes outlined and to strive towards meeting the timelines outlined within the IAM and templates.

The IAM can be found here: 

 once you get to this page, scroll down to Part 26 Budget and then scroll up to Chapter 3 (the PART title appears under the chapters). Once you have the manual open, you will see the link that takes you to the attachments within Section 1.1 Purpose. You can also find those attachments hosted on the OBPM webpage 

View the latest TIBC meeting materials here.

 of TIBC Representatives, Revised April 2023

TIBC Member Orientation Webinar: The Federal Budget Process & TIBC

The next TIBC meeting will take place in the Eastern Oklahoma Region.


Two resolutions were passed at the March 2025 TIBC Meeting.

 Asserting Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) Schools are Schools of Choice and Opposing Voucher Program Proposed under BIE through Executive Order

 Calling on the Administration to Limit Impacts of Federal Hiring Freezes and Reductions in Workforce on Tribal Nations

Approved meeting minutes from August 2024 meeting

Draft meeting minutes from November 2024 meeting

2027 National Tribal Priority Program Ranking by Category & Program

FY27 Education Ranking Tribal v. BIE Funded Schools

Bureau of Trust Funds Administration Budget Strategy

Office of Indian Economic Development Updates

Congressional Research Service BIA Budget Review

Land, Water, and Natural Resources Subcommittee Agenda

Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee Agenda

Tribal Interior Budget Council Past Meetings 

Two resolutions were passed at the November 2024 TIBC meeting

Calling on the BIA Division of Transportation to Conduct a Third-Party Review of the Tribal Transportation Program Funding Distribution Formula

Calling Upon Congress to Enact Legislation Regarding USDA Authority to Enter into Co-Management Agreements, Contracts, and Compacts with Tribes for Lands Under US Forest System Jurisdiction

Technical Assistance for Tribes on the Cost of Federal Programs

Technical Assistance for Tribes on the Cost of Federal Programs Narrative

Census Statistical Product First Initiative

BIE Funded Tribal Colleges and Universities and Grants

NIEA Proposed Changes to Indian Education

EPA Funding Opportunities for Clean School Buses

Transportation Subcommittee Field Session

DOJ Tribal Public Safety & Criminal Justice Consultation

Comments can be submitted either by email to 

 or by mail to Office of Tribal Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20530-0001 by 

Draft Meeting Minutes from July convening

Approved Meeting Minutes from March convening 

Executive Summary - TIBC FY26 Tribal Budget Submission

American Indian Higher Education Consortium - Endowment Letter

Bureau of Trust Funds Administration - Budget Strategy 

National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers Presentation

Meeting Materials


Created at the November 2015 TIBC meeting

Public Safety and Justice Workgroup Documents

TIBC Workgroups

Tribal Interior Budget Council


In response to disastrous court opinions and legislative attacks on the status of tribal governments, tribal leaders formed the Tribal Sovereignty Protection Initiative (TSPI) in September, 2001. Tribal leaders structured the TSPI as four separate components: the Legislative Committee, the Tribal Supreme Court Project, the Federal Judicial Selection Project, and the Education and Public Outreach Committee—all working together toward the common goal of protecting tribal sovereignty. Under this framework, tribal leaders, attorneys, and other experts have coordinated and developed an array of educational, legal, political, and grassroots strategies.

A key component of the TSPI on which NCAI continues to work daily is the Tribal Supreme Court Project. The Tribal Supreme Court Project—a collaboration between NCAI and the Native American Rights Fund— monitors litigation in which Native people have a significant stake and coordinates strategy among a network of over 250 tribal leaders, attorneys, and law professors. That strategy includes the preparation and submission, where appropriate, of amicus briefs on behalf of tribes or tribal organizations. Efforts like these have succeeded in slowing and, in some instances, reversing the detrimental impacts of federal court decisions.

Protection of tribal sovereignty in US courts is fundamental to the continued existence of tribes as distinct peoples and cultures. NCAI is dedicated to protecting tribal sovereignty and treaty rights through the courts.

For additional information on the Tribal Supreme Court Project, please visit 

Tribal Supreme Court Project

NCAI’s partnerships and initiatives blend together the knowledge of our members and our organization with the power of direct and on-the-ground efforts in tribal communities, coalition efforts, and national education and information campaigns.

As a unifying entity, NCAI has the ability to bring government, private, and public sector partners together to take on some of Indian Country’s greatest challenges

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