Program helps tribal businesses
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HELENA – The Indian Country Economic Development program, created by the 59th Montana State Legislature, is a state-funded program administered by the Montana Department of Commerce. Since October 2005, the state legislature made a biennial appropriation of one-time only grant funds to be made available to Montana’s tribal nations and tribal businesses for business development activities. In the 64th legislative session, $800,000 per year in funding for the ICED program was approved as part of House Bill 2, and signed into law by Governor Bullock in May 2015.
As a part of the successful ICED programming, direct counseling and technical assistance services have been a keystone of support to local Native American entrepreneurs and businesses in tribal communities. The Department of Commerce leveraged the Indian Entrepreneur program for several years and found that additional assistance was needed for more in-depth one-on-one business counseling. The Department of Commerce has intensified the Indian Entrepreneur services by rebranding the program as the Native American Business Advisor program. The Department of Commerce has deployed $15,000 in grant funds for each tribal government area (including the state-recognized Little Shell Tribe) for technical assistance, capacity building, and counseling services.
The re-branded NABA program kicked off in September 2015 with technical assistance webinars and an application period that ran through October 2015. Contracts were finalized with eight organizations in January and February 2016 for a total of $120,000 in grant funding.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai NABA and the Sovereign Leasing and Financing organizations were selected based on their ability to provide and improve their technical assistance, training, credit education, and Indian Equity Fund Small Business Grant application assistance to Native American businesses in their area.
