Prior Lake, Minnesota - The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community made a donation today of $250,000 to support economic development in Indian Country. The Intertribal Economic Alliance of Washington, D.C., will receive the donation, which is part of an SMSC commitment of $1 million over three years to help create over 200,000 new sustainable jobs on impoverished Indian Reservations, Alaska Native Villages, and Native Hawaiian Homelands. In October 2004 (fiscal year 2005) they received $500,000 from the SMSC, with $250,000 for the next two years thereafter.

ITEA's primary tool for creating reservation jobs is to create multi-tribal companies that obtain large contracts and then channel the work to tribal and Indian-owned businesses on reservations with high unemployment. ITEA has created companies in forest restoration, natural beef and food products, manufacturing, and energy construction among others. It is also creating a venture capital company to provide debt and equity funding for these initiatives.

Intertribal Economic Alliance Chairman Tex Hall said, "This is great news. ITEA is honored to accept a donation from the Shakopee Nation. We are very appreciative and very honored."

ITEA's first success has been in the information technology sector. ITEA assisted seven tribes, two Alaska Native Villages, and one Hawaiian Homestead to create the Intertribal Information Technology Company. With the help of Senators Daniel Inouye and Ted Stevens, IITC has received over $60 million in contracts from the Department of Defense to digitize technical manuals for the military. By subcontracting the work to internet technology companies owned by the ten tribes, IITC created over 50 jobs on each of these ten Native communities.

The SMSC donation enabled ITEA to launch its Intertribal Natural Beef, Buffalo, and Food Products Company. This project assisted Indian ranchers to become more profitable by being part of a multi-tribal company to sell, under an Indian brand, the higher-priced cuts into the natural beef market and lower-end hamburger to the Department of Defense and the Department of Agriculture under the special Federal contract preferences available to tribally owned companies. ITEA is teamed in this endeavor with B3R meats, the largest natural beef company in the country. This new multi-tribal company will enable many of the 3,500 Indian families engaged in ranching (including many in the Sioux Nation) to become viable businesses that can support their families and contribute to the revitalization of their reservation economies. The project will also assist tribes create food products for purchase by the United States Department of Agriculture.

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