Virtual Workshop for Entities in the Bristol Bay Region

6:41PM Dec 9, 2021

Speakers:

Keywords:

grant

bristol bay

alaska

money

tribes

afn

eligible

community

funds

projects

program

native

village

people

tribal

opportunities

questions

region

grant writing

lisa

Good morning. Morning. Morning. This is Joan

Hi Joan this April. Hi well good. I'm gonna mute because I keep coughing

Oh Okay. All right. Now let's see. Let's figure out how to share my screen. Can you hear me Yes. Okay, we're sharing my screen see there we go. Oops I don't want all that is a Prolon Okay, are you talking?

Yes, she's all we are gonna give this just a few more minutes. That's fine. I understand that there was that some storms out in the Bristol Bay region. So we'll be a little bit more time to sign on if they are. So we'll start in just one or two minutes. And I appreciate both of you ladies. All of you ladies participating. And I think that because they're having so many internet problems out there that Sara is going to have this recorded and then we can send it out by way of thumb drive. And it'll also be recorded and archived. I think there's a lot of value in that even if not everybody's able to join us today.

Okay. So the two people that we have from Bristol Bay, Bill Hill, can you tell me a little bit about where you're from? Just while we're waiting?

Yeah, good morning. Bill hill here. I'm in that MC in the Bristol Bay borough that serves South magnet King Salman and NAC MC. I am the superintendent of the school district and President of Public village Incorporated.

Okay. And how about you Sarah? Bruce? Hi. Yeah, I'm also over a Naknek I work for the borough. I'm the new director of planning and zoning for the Bristol Bay borough. So I'll be doing a lot of grants and things over on my end, so yeah, also very neck Nick. Alright, good. Brandon, where are you from?

Sorry, was that direct me? Yeah, I was just I'm just trying to get a sense of where people are from so i It might help me kind of tailor this a little bit. More to specific needs.

Okay, yeah, you bet. Brendan Shively. I'm with Chuck Young and I'm currently calling in from Anchorage, but our headquarters in Philly.

Got it. Okay. And how about Cameron?

Also also with Chicking limited office based in Anchorage, chickens, the village corporate dynamic quartz creek

right okay. And where are you from? Mark? Mark, you're on mute. Oh, while we're waiting for Mark we have someone who called in from 907-246-4277. Can you tell us who you are and where you're from, or what what group you represent. I'm Samantha Smith, and I work for POSIX nathnac. Okay, got a good representation from NEC NEC

oh I see a message on the chat that the host has to unmute some folks unmute mark right now I'm unmuted

Oh, hi there. Hi, Mark. Hey, bro All right, well, we'll go ahead and get started. Good morning, everyone. My name is Sarah Peterson.

My name is Sarah Peterson and I am the deputy program manager for AFM navigator program. And we'd like to welcome everybody to the Miss Bristol Bay Regional webinar. Workshop on grant writing, identifying grants grant writing funding opportunities, as well as an overview of the infrastructure bill and a little bit about the navigator program. It was recently launched in August of this year through a state funded grant and the navigators, we have about eight navigators on our team, providing assistance and outreach to each of the regions of Alaska in order to ensure that the Alaska Native communities and tribes, corporations and entities have access to the federal funding that is coming out of ARPA Cares Act and now infrastructure. So on our navigator page website, we have a number of resources and links to other resources. One of the highlights is also some grant writing assistance. So if you need grant writing assistance, we'll talk about that but there's free grant writing assistance through the Alaska Municipal League and the pool of grant writers that they have available and journal talk a little bit about that as well. And also some consultations, just trying to figure out if there's grants that may be specific to your needs. So that is something that we are very proud of and also reporting and compliance assistance also through the Alaska Municipal League, which is being provided for, um, through this grant. So if you have any questions about reporting and compliance of any of the grants or funds that you've received, there's assistance there as well. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Lisa Sutherland. I'll let her introduce herself and her background but she is one of our esteemed lead federal program navigators. And also on the line is April Ferguson, who is the regional navigator for the Bristol Bay region. And Joan Herman, let Joan when she will be talking about grant writing and get let her give her background but with that, Lisa, I will turn it over to you. Make sure you're on mute.

All right, sorry about that. Um, thanks, everyone for participating today. You are well represented at AFN in the Bristol Bay region. Sarah worked for the Bristol Bay. Native Corporation. April, as you know, was it I think, in the legal department at Bristol Bay, and I also worked in the legal department at the Bristol Bay Native Corporation. During my law school years my mother also worked for Bristol Bay Native Corporation. It's almost kind of embarrassing, but you have good advocates at AFN and from the Bristol Bay region. And so I'm going to go through just kind of maybe a initially a thumbnail sketch of what's in the infrastructure bill. And then I will, I will let Joan talk about grant writing. And then if we have more time, I can go into some of the weeds a little bit more. And then there's a couple beyond the infrastructure bill. There are a couple of other funding opportunities that are out there. They're coming up on deadlines. And I want to make sure that you are aware of

could I interject for a minute quicker? For folks who may not be familiar with you about all your work for Senator Stevens in the Appropriations Committee?

Sure. So after I work for best obey Native Corporation, and I went to University of Washington law school, where I specialized in in marine non Indian law, and then I went to work for Senator Stevens and I worked for him for about almost 25 years. I was his legislative director at one point, I was as Chief of Staff. I was the staff director of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees fisheries and transportation for that matter in science and a couple of other things. And I was the deputy staff director of the Appropriations Committee, in charge of all funding for Alaska, with the exception of the Defense Department. So I know the budget the federal budget pretty well. And if there are specific if we have time, especially at the end of this or even if we don't have time at the end of this. If you have specific things that you are looking for federal funding for, I would be happy to do and you know individual call with APR with you and hear more about what you need and give you some ideas of where we can where you can look for some federal funds. So the first thing is, in terms of the infrastructure bill, it started out really as as kind of a highway bill. The highway bill has to get reauthorized every five years. And so that started in the in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that Senator Senator Sullivan sits on. And it has a couple of things in terms of actually has a lot of road money. But in terms of what Alaska will get, its $3.5 billion over five years for roads and highways. That's a 34% increase over what we're currently getting through the formula so that he was able he was Senator, Congressman Young who sits on that on the transportation committee on the House side, we're able to get the the higher the formula modified because these are mostly formula funds. And so Alaska will get a about a little more than a billion dollars more than it than it previously did. In addition to that, it'll get a share of $110 billion for for other road and bridge programs. So if you have bridges that need to be rebuilt, repaired, whatever it is, now is your time to go after bridge money. And I know that there are I haven't talked to anyone in the Bristol Bay region, but I've talked to people in other parts of the state that have old dilapidated bridges that they're trying to repair or you may have bridges that you want to build. On top of that, there's another 100 million dollars that's been authorized but hasn't actually been funded yet. For the Denali Commission. For roads, and so that is 20 million a year. That money has to be appropriated, but most likely it will be and that was that was a program in in a bill that was called safety Lu which Congressman young originally sponsored back in maybe 2004. or there abouts. And it had expired and so he renewed that. And so Denali Commission will be getting road money again, and there's no match for that. By the way. Broadband that was another big focus of this bill. So some of you may have been involved in an agency called the National Telecommunications Information Administration. They had a billion dollars for tribal broadband projects and Alaska Native corporations, tribal organizations, like bros obey Native Association or even the housing authority and, and tribes were all eligible for that money and those applications had to be submitted by September 1. There was originally a billion dollars for that program, and Congress added two more billion dollars. So some of that money will be used to probably provide more funding to projects that they were going to fund anyway, there were of the billion dollars that they had they they had $5 billion worth of Project requests across the country. Each tribe is entitled to a minimum of 500,000 but could apply for as much as $50 million dollars if they were part of a consortium.

So instead of having 1 billion for $5 billion, with the projects, they now have $3 billion. So they have about 60% of the money compared to all the requests that they got in but in order to be eligible for a grant, there's two kinds of grants you could get. You either have to be in an unserved area or in our way underserved area, which probably most of the Bristol Bay region meets that qualification. So remember, there's tribes and lower 48 who may have who I know applied for this, who there's no way they're unserved, like Martha's Vineyard, for example, they, you know, or other other tribes that are located near urban centers. They're not their grants are going to be denied because they're not unserved because they have to find everything that's unserved first. So anyway, there's an extra $2 billion. Some of that will probably go to increasing the funding for existing applications, and they most likely will open another funding window. So there'll be another opportunity to apply for that money. The head of the National Telecommunications Information Administration was just nominated. He had his Senate hearing and he is part of that process. He had to go meet with Senator Sullivan and he had he promised herself and he would come to Alaska. So as we know more about that we will keep you in the loop. Because I think there'll be an opportunity to meet with him if you're having specific problems with broadband or even with the broadband grant program. So now we went from 1 billion to 3 billion for the tribal broadband grant program. And on top of that, each state gets a minimum of $100 million, but um, states with large areas of unserved areas get more so Alaska is going to get a total of this doesn't include the tribal money. Alaska is going to get $1.5 billion over five years to primarily I believe, to the state. So the state has a broadband working group that has just recently put out recommendations on how some of those funds should be allocated. But so there's going to be in addition to the tribal money, there's going to be other money that the state's going to have access to in addition to the National Telecommunications tribal Broadband Program and the money the state has. The Rural Utility Service, which is part of the Agriculture Department also has a program called reconnect. And that is another broadband program. They just opened a funding window, I think, November 30, or there abouts. There. So they are taking applications until I think, I want to say February 11 through early February is when those applications are due. I was just on a on a call. I guess it was late last week with that agency, and they are going to have a number of workshops which we will do our best to keep you in the loop. On. So they have a funding window with money that they already got. And that's ongoing. In addition to that they got another $2 billion on top of the money they already have. So they're going to have the of the money that's out there right now. 350 million is for tribal broadband. And that includes native corporations, tribes and tribal organizations. Oh, actually, it includes federally recognized tribes and and a native corporations who are eligible for that money. Now I did notice on there, you know, this is probably getting too much into the weeds so you get priority. There's no match required if you're, if you're doing this on tribal lands, and I looked at the map they had of tribal lands, it did not include the native corporation lands and it's supposed to, so I've sent them a note to make sure that that that's covered but a lot of that money should be available without having to have a match. So if you're working out of broadband project, that's another source of money.

On top of that, this is really astounding that there's this much money out there, but there's another billion dollars in this infrastructure bill for what's called middle mile projects, and that's over five years, so there's $200 million a year. So there's kind of three parts of the internet. There's the part that kind of goes up into space when you send an email, and then comes down back to Earth and then there's kind of that there's a middle part and then there's the part that like connects to your house. So from the place where it comes down from, you know, say a satellite or whatever it might be, you know, that's the middle mile and then there's the connection into your home. And the middle mile is where a lot of Alaska's deficiencies are. So there's a billion dollars for that as well. And then there's a bunch of different and if we have time I'll go into more detail or maybe we'll later do a program just on broadband, but there's a lot of what I would call digital equity programs. And that's to do things like do job training, computer training, helps us subsidize broadband bills and things like that. This is a program that runs through the states. There's not a lot of details about it yet. But as more becomes available that is another program that Alaska Native communities in particular should benefit from. And then there's one other one which if you have people in your communities who have broadband bills, and they are I think it's 135% of poverty. they're eligible to have a subsidy of $75 per month for their broadband Bill plus $100 per person to help them buy a computer a laptop

or

or a like a tablet. So that program, we're going to be working with the Federal Communications Commission. There are 200,000 people in Alaska who are eligible for that program based on their income based on Whitehouse statistics, and only 5000 People are signed up. So we'll we'll be doing some more on that. But there's also a new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission was just tell me if I'm getting out of control here on time was just confirmed, and she's agreed to work with AFN and others to try to make sure we get as many native residents signed up for that program as possible. So there'll be more details on that. So there is the money for Coast Guard construction, none of that affects the Bristol Bay region. So I'm going to skip that. Does anybody have ferry projects that you all are working on? I'm guessing that's not applicable to Bristol Bay. Am I correct? Okay, I'm going to skip over there's a lot of money for fairies. I think that's more a se thing. Water and Sewer all the time this bill is all done. There shouldn't be any place in Alaska that doesn't have running water. Senator Sullivan reauthorized a program that had expired in the Safe Drinking Water Act that provides 250 Well, it's going to provide $250 million over five years for the village Safe Water Program, plus there's a 25% state match. So over five years, there'll be $312 million for that. That program it has an existing priority list that is ongoing so they will take projects off that priority list. If you're on the priority list, you're likely to get funded faster. If you're not on the priority list. You can you can jump on to the tail end of it. In addition to that there is $3.5 billion for the Indian Health Service and for their water and sewer programs. And about a billion of that is going to go to a mth see Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. They've also changed the rules. And it used to be that areas that were considered quote unsustainable because their high cost areas could not get funding. Sarah Murkowski changed that. So now, all of our native communities are going to be eligible and we've been told that the amount of money that she provided this was primarily a Murkowski thing. It's enough to cover every community that needs water and sewer. On top of that, there is another $55 billion nationwide for water and sewer. And if you're like, for example, if you're a borough or you are a municipality, you would be eligible for some of those funds. Some of that requires a 40% match. I think it's called the Stagg program. Some of it does not. We don't haven't seen all the details yet that most of that money will be run through EPA. Since this bill just passed, we haven't seen any kind of Notice of Funding Availability but but know that there's going to be a lot of money come in, if you're not a tribe, or I mean, you aren't a native community. As in the legal sense, you're a borough or municipality or you know, local government. I didn't mention that. Of the $250 million. That was for the village village Safe Water Act. Sarah Murkowski chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee that funds that she's already put $40 million in for this fiscal year, which started technically October 1, that bill those appropriations bills are still being negotiated. And they won't get done probably until February. But I think there's going to be plenty of money out there to keep people busy. So maybe that's a blessing in disguise.

Energy. This doesn't directly affect the Bristol Bay region, but there is a an $18 billion loan guarantee for the Alaska liquefied natural gas project in the department of energy budget. So that will have some kind of spin off effects statewide. And if you're running, say a construction company or for a through your native corporation or you have a subsidiary that is involved in that kind of work. Or construction, there may be opportunities there. There's also $2.25 billion over five years for ports and harbors. And 250 This is a new thing that they're solving worked on with Congressman young $250 million of that is set aside specifically for remote and subsistence harbor projects. In the past, everybody kind of competed together nationwide for this money. So now we have a set aside that's for specifically for remote and not all the places that are remote are going to be in Alaska, but probably most of them are and and certainly, I can't think of any other place in the country where they're going to have subsistence hearts, you know, harbor projects. So that's going to be a good one that's going to be through the Army Corps of Engineers. There was if you work for Native Corporation, there is money and some language, you know, new new bill language new law that deals with the rare earth minerals and mining of rare earth minerals and my very first job for Senator Stevens back in 1977, was to read all the environmental impact statements that were developed by the fish for the Interior Department for refuges and parks. And I can tell you that having read all of your the you know for whether it's cat Meyer or whatever it is all the refuges and parks. There are rare earth minerals in the Bristol Bay region that are identified that have been identified by the Interior Department. So there are potentially could be some opportunities there. Denali Commission I mentioned the 100 million dollars over five years for roads, so that's 20 million a year. And by the way, Garret Graves who formerly was Senator Murkowski, his legislative director, is the new head of the Denali Commission and he'll be presenting at the AFN convention next week. So I encourage everybody to listen in on that. But on top of that, he also got not he but the Denali Commission got $75 million, that it can use for almost any purpose, any kind of infrastructure purpose, and I think he's going to be talking about that. What so Garrett is the federal coach here but on the commission, Julie kitka, as the President of AFN is a permanent member of the Denali Commission. She sits on the board of the daily commission. So native community will have a you know, good kind of in input there. So I think I should pause here because we're at the half hour mark and let Joan present her material and if we have more time, I'll go into some more detail on some of the other provisions that are you know, some of the other fun things that were maybe authorized but not funded yet and some of the other kind of what I would call cats and dogs. I just tried to give you the big overview of things I thought you'd be most interested in. Go ahead, John.

Hi, good morning, everyone. And I I want to tell you right out of the beginning that I am so thrilled and excited to be a part of this type of a, a session at a meeting that really brings it all together in one place. This is such valuable information. Thank you so much. For all of that information and for bringing it to everybody. My heart has been in rural Alaska for almost 25 years. And my company is Alaska project solutions. We've worked primarily with Alaska native tribes, and Alaska, small, rural municipalities and other governmental type of organizations in rural Alaska. We've brought about $120 million in federal and state grant programs that have been funded through our company to different communities and we work on all different types of grants. So we've seen a huge variety of various programs and have just tried to learn to to move with whatever type of grant application we're presented with to learn how to to navigate the system that is needed to submit grant applications for folks that are that are requesting that. So one of the things that I've recently been involved in is with the Alaska Municipal League for the grants hotline which has been wonderful being on the phone with folks answering questions. And I think for the purpose of this session, I was asked to just talk a little bit about open up the lines, I think, to answer questions about getting ready for grant applications, as I think we can also see there's a lot out there. And even as grant writers that have been around for a long time, it's it's huge. It's a massive amount of information. And folks are saying please don't even tell me any more about grant applications. It's just too much. So that's why we're here to kind of help sort out priorities for people match up with grants that might be a good fit, help everybody kind of move through what needs to be done, what needs to be pursued and the timelines and schedules that we're all facing to get this done. So I'm, I'm happy to open this up to any questions and maybe that will just kind of carry us through this session. Any questions?

I have a question, Joan. This is April. Can you describe for folks what's available on the public domain? It seemed to me that there's a lot of resources that Alaska Municipal League has on its website. Yes. So many of them are free. And different agencies I've noted on their websites have grant writing both training sessions and recommendations but from your experience, what Where should people go for help?

Sure. For one thing, the website Alaska, Alaska arpa.org. I'm just typing it into my computer because I because I want to make sure that we get that in there, right. And it's not letting me type. Okay, well it's Alaska arpa.org. And that website has an enormous amount of, of resources for tribes and for municipalities. I know that this focus is on on the Bristol Bay Area, and I believe that you'll that anyone, anywhere in Alaska, we'll find something on this website. It is basically covering all of the new grants that are popping up as they're coming out as those windows are opening for funding. And the announcements are being are being posted. And so you can see a whole list of different kinds of grants for different entities and their links. You can also go to a site for grant resources in terms of grant writers Amell has been working with a handful of grant writing companies that can help answer questions and also can provide grant writing services as well. And there's also a $2,500 Assistance Fund. That basically helps you get started with a grant writer and I believe that's, that's coming out of AML to to assist folks with with just getting going on a grant right with a grant writer. Um, and so I encourage you to just go there to the to the that's the one of the best sites I've seen in so long. And I'm so thankful to see that, that this is this work is being done because I think we'll all agree we've never seen quite this together type of a movement where AFN Amell everyone's coming together and forager as well, all working together to make sure that the information gets dispersed to everyone. And so this is really a wonderful time to be a part of the grant world. Usually we have to hunt for those grants on grants.gov And I will tell you grants.gov is basically the portal where you submit your grants. You can also find all the details about a grant. But in order to do that, you have to have a federal opportunity number and you have to have a CFDA number, meaning you've got to have a little bit of information before you can really search otherwise if you try to enter a search, like via keyword or or something like that, you end up it's like diving into the ocean of all grants and you will get grants from all around the world and it'll be really frustrating. So I really encourage you to go ahead and start with the ARPA Alaska or the Alaska arpa.org. website, because it's current and focused on Alaska. And Alaska is grants. Can

I jump in just for a minute, Joan? Yes, of course. So on on a FM's website and maybe Sarah can pop in about how you access that. We we have grant opportunities you can search by whether if you're a corporation native corporation, you can punch the Native Corporation, search bar, and it'll show you everything that native corporations are eligible for. If you're a tribal if you're a federally recognized tribe. You can search by that. If you're a tribal organization like a native nonprofit, you can search that if you want housing, you can look at that if you if you want broadband, you can look at that. And and then, in addition to those kind of search bars it's also been simplified there's yellow, red and blue I think that's right, Sarah. The yellows are no the the I'm sorry, green. It's like a stoplight. Green are the easy ones to apply for that aren't going to, you know, be super hard. Yellow are the ones that take a little more time and red are the hard ones. So if you have limited capacity and you want to apply for the easy low hanging fruit kind of grants, then look for ones that are highlighted in green and their inboxes. So just highlight the green, the green boxes and you can apply for things that don't that aren't super hard. So that way you can focus your your energy and and do some kind of searching like if you let's say you have a doc, you can search you know, you can search by Tran there's a lot of different search bars in there. So anyway, just wanted to point that out and maybe maybe at some point Sarah can bring it up on her screen and show you what it looks like because it's it's really good as someone who funded worked on the Appropriations Committee funding a lot of this stuff. This is the easiest way I've seen for people to access it without having to dig through federal agency websites and that kind of thing.

Yes, yes. Thank you. Really, really quickly.

I apologize, Joan. So I just sent out the link to the funding opportunity for the funding opportunity website. And also on there is we prepared executive summaries where we have tried to take the information and condense it down into an executive summary. So for the programs that we have executive summaries, if you click on that, that's what we've had created for those particular funding opportunities. It also there's hyper links in there for maybe some of the PDFs or the the notice of intent or directly to the the agency website where there's more information or the Notice of Funding Opportunity. So it's it's a fantastic resource that this team has put together.

Yes, I agree. What I'm seeing on the screen here, I asked if this could we could show you this a little bit because when I first started writing a grant, I knew nothing about what a grant was. Some of you may know Mark Hiratsuka who is from Dillingham and he was my mentor. He's the one who basically walked into my office while I was working halftime at the Val these city schools and he plopped a big RFP on my desk and said I want you to write this and I said, What is it and he said it's a grant. And I said what's a grant? And it that's how I got started and I and I do believe that most everyone I've ever met started writing grants that way where it was just you had no idea where to start. And so I wanted to share this with you because it's a really good visual to show you how to start and also it it covers a principle called the 8020 principle, which is kind of something that maybe some of you have heard before, but it it aligns with a lot of major work that's done in, in different industries. And this one shows you basically how much time it takes you to to get to the point where you can actually sit down and write a grant and as you can see about 80% of the time is actually just planning, pre planning, talking to your partners, getting permission to go to go ahead and proceed. Making sure the grant matches up with what you want to do and that you're eligible to to apply for the grant. Making sure you have a team on board that can help you as you write the grant, making sure that you have all of your demographics in order and all of your fiscal and financial house in order, making sure that your audits are all up to date, your sam.gov registration and your grants.gov registration is all in place and activated. And then you finally get to a point where you're able to sit down and write I can't tell you how many times people have said to me two weeks into a grant writing contract. When they say do you have a draft ready yet? And I say I haven't even started writing it yet. Because I've been busy gathering resumes and position descriptions and and backgrounds about the agency or the entity or the tribe. And so when Mark Hiratsuka put that on my desk, I looked at him and said what do I do with this? How do I do this? And this is the million dollar advice he gave me and I use it over and over again. He just said just read it and follow the directions. And I have learned that lesson over and over again where sometimes I get so overwhelmed with looking into one of those nofas or RFPs they're all basically the guidance of how you write a grant or what the grant funder is asking you to present to them in order to get funded. That that just read it and follow the directions has come back to me many many times over and over and guides me through my work and so this is just a really good visual for some of the types of processes that you have to go through to get to where you can actually sit down and write because you have to have all this together before you can really start writing your grant application.

I will tell you sam.gov For any of you who are maybe behind on your grant or your sam.gov registration, that there What sam.gov Even is yes I sure will be happy to sam.gov is basically the government's portal where they they maintain all of an applicant or business or any entity that does anything with the government. So if you receive grants if you get received contracts, anything like that you have to be registered in this in this portal called sam.gov. And it is like breaking into Fort Knox if you want to go through the registration process but you really have to get set up in sam.gov in order to apply for a grant and in order to receive funding from a grant. And so I really encourage you to all make sure that you get that set up there are step by step instructions on the website. And you have to be really careful about one thing and that is fraud. There are a lot of of scam artists out there then you're trying to take advantage of obtaining your private entities information. So you want to only do business with sam.gov and no other support. Support contractors who offer you the stars in the moon to help you get through the process for a small fee. So, registering with sam.gov is is free and the service is free. But it is a way so that the government can know who you are can have the information they need in most cases, your checking account, it has to be entered into that as well. So it's a very secure way of them helping you to manage your grants helping you to receive the funds through a drawdown and then sam.gov is is paired with grants.gov. So if you register with your sam.gov and get through that portal and get that set up and activated, then you also need to register with grants.gov because they that is the where you will submit your grant. And these steps are are very lengthy to go into detail today. But there are excellent videos and tutorials on both of those sites to help you walk through the process. One of the biggest things is to make sure that you maintain an active SAM account because that will stop everything. And the same with your grants.gov They're very, very astute about making sure you change your passwords quite often. And so it's very important to keep your passwords in a secure place and and make sure they're kept update updated.

And excuse me, John, this is April. I don't really see a lot of tribes with us here today, although we'll be forwarding this information on out to them is if they have any questions on how to do this almost all of the village corporations should have sam.gov registrations and know how to do this. So yeah, look to their sister corporations for some advice or to be able to see.

Yes, and and I will I will I can't stress enough how important it is to be sure that you are working directly with sam.gov and that you are keeping the information your password and login very secure. Because there there is even a pirate site that mirrors sam.gov that takes your information. So it's really critical that when you go online, you you are either making phone calls, or you are following the sam.gov site that and I'm unsure how to know the difference at this point. But I just I just heard about that yesterday. So be careful. Guard your information. Don't share it with a contractor. Keep it so that you have some some people not just one person in your organization with that information. But that you have two individuals with the information needed to do that because it can make or break submitting a grant application. If that's not current or activated. You may hire a contractor to write you a grant but they won't be able to submit the grant for you if that's not current and activated.

John, I also wanted to interject for folks is that this discussion today is merely scratching the surface. I know that bbna plans to do a three day intensive on grant writing in February, I believe. And so if anybody's interested in reaching in registering for that they should reach out to Christina Andrews and also as Jonas said, is it the last Municipal League website that has links to the arpa.org they've got a full time would you call it grant writer Joan who is scanning the grants.gov and sifting through all of those and then publishing on that website. As she said grants specific to Alaska opportunities under different headings. So similar to the Navigator site, those resources are available through the AFN Navigator site, and they're also available through the last municipal league, but it will save you time having had an expert go through these and sift through this ocean of opportunities for those opportunities that are directly beneficial to Alaska and that and they're looking for grants for education for the bridges for the roads. They have a subject category for all of those different areas. Yes.

So very, very important. Also, whoever registers for your sam.gov needs to communicate with the person who's registering with grants.gov Because those two entities have to have information that matches. So you can have Bob Brown, registered as the authority in sam.gov and Mary Smith as the entity or as the authority in grants.gov these two these two need to match. Exactly same with your addresses, phone numbers and emails. So that's really critical point as well. So I'm glad to hear that someone's going to go through that because that will that will be really, really good. sam.gov takes approximately two weeks to activate into register through. It is quite a process and it can be a long process if there's any hiccups along the way. grants.gov can be done in one day. As long as the sam.gov is active any other questions?

Well, if they're sometimes it takes time, I think to think through the questions that you might have, and through the last municipal league AFN and AML have provided funds so that any tribe or entity, city village corporation can call up there number that don't and her colleagues work at and get a half hour free consultation. So it's it's a it's a really valuable resource to research.

And something I've thought was a would be a wonderful service for years and years. And it's so good to see that there's a resource out there like this. I'm so thrilled to be a part of that. Because I've seen the needs in rural Alaska and a lot of times is today. The people that needed the most can't access it. And so I appreciate the effort that's going out and I'm hoping that you know if there's any way to reach some of those rural communities that x absolutely are, are shut out from some of this technology, access that that there's that there's a way to reach out I know AFN is has access to do that, even if it's just take making phone calls to folks. This information is so valuable because one of the and one of the issues that I have often been concerned about is that some of these grants that are coming out are so complicated, I mean even for seasoned grant writers who have seen dozens and dozens of different types of RFPs or no photos or guidance call outs for grant applications. These grants are RFPs are extremely complicated in some of these bigger projects. So I encourage you to sit down with someone who can at least help you walk through those documents then those RFPs that's a request for proposal that you'll see from from funders who are saying, you know, here's an announcement, we're going to make these funds available to you if you apply for this purpose. And so, it sounds so simple but yet those RFPs are, are getting more and more complicated as well as the technology that's required to submit the grants. Gone are the days of writing grant applications and getting multiple copies and sticking them in a box and sending them by FedEx or via US Postal Service. Those days is where I started. And there are very few funders who are still doing that method of submitting grants. So not only are you dealing with complicated RFPs and guidance processes, but you are dealing with complicated technologies as well. That takes time once you once you start to maneuver and navigate through some of those documents. It'll come second nature for you to feel more comfortable in what you're looking at. And you'll be able to find certain things in those RFPs that are key to figuring out whether you're eligible for that project application, or whether that application is going to actually fit your need. So that's that's those are really two of the first things you're going to want to look for when you're looking at a grant guidance document. I could go on and on but make sure there's plenty of time for questions if there are any more

should we take some some questions APR?

Sorry, absolutely. If people have questions, please feel free to answer them. And if you don't hear any then just jump back into it again. Lisa. Okay.

Okay, well, I'll go ahead and get started. If anybody obviously Jonah's the expert on the grant writing process. If anybody wants some individual help identifying specific opportunities, April and I can schedule and get back with April we can schedule a time to sit down and talk about specific needs you might have and see if we can help you identify some grant opportunities out there. I'm just going to kind of quickly run down a few things that just so you know about them. These are if you want to put my screen back up. I'll run through some of some of these things. These are authorizations that were included in the infrastructure bill. Some of them I've talked about, but some of them I want to just make sure you know about. You put Can you put my screen back up here and have that. I'll go ahead and get started while she's working on that. So there was some provisions dealing with rural barge landings, docks and waterfront infrastructure. And the state is allowed to transfer up to 5% of its block grant for projects in a rural community or native village and so I think that's the $3.5 billion block grant at the state God so that would be about $150 million, give or take maybe a little bit more than that. In addition, the state can transfer up to 15% of its block grant for rural roads, ice roads, seasonal roads, tourism projects, or to the Denali Commission. And so when you think about the state getting $3.5 billion 15% of that is close to $500. million dollars. That's a lot of money. Some of these are just cats, dogs. I'll just kind of go through quickly. There's money for if you're having any problems with wildlife crossings. About that, let's see did that just come up? Now my, my document disappeared. Let's see that I was talking from keep going. Okay, oh, stop, stop, stop, stop. Okay. Anyway, there's some money for wildlife crossings. I don't know why Congress thought. I guess too many animals are getting run over. Anyway. Both tribes and Alaska Native corporations are eligible for that money. There's healthy street grants for tribes. For installing trees along roadways. I don't know if that's that relevant, really in the Bristol Bay region. I mentioned the Denali Commission roads, money. There's a study of road maintenance on tribal roads, or also roads on engso lands. Indian Reservation roads don't apply in the Bristol Bay region. There's also a study on crash data. Car crash data on tribal roads and native communities. We talked about village safe water, Department of Transportation for the first time is now going to have an Office of Tribal Affairs. I know a lot of tribes in particular use money or run programs on tribal roads. So there's going to be a point of contact there. There is separate there's $750 million for recycling and advanced energy projects that tribes and Alaska Native corporations are eligible for. We talked a little bit about the critical minerals mining program. So there's both grants and loan guarantees. It's a total of $400 million $100 million per year with a $10 million maximum grant amount. They also have if you can, I don't know for some reason I can't control my screen. You can scroll down a little bit more

I'm able to do it. Aaron, do you have control who has control of my screen here? Right now? I know I've got it. Okay. There's an energy workforce advisory board, and then you can go on to the next page. There are tribal tribes are eligible for hydrogen production and recycling grants. There's 500 million for that. There is loan guarantees. So I talked to you about the gas pipeline, and also for other energy projects. There's also grants for firefighting for native crews and native youth $300 million over two years. That's $150 million a year. I'm guessing that might be something that would be worthwhile and some Brewster Bay communities, there is federal permitting reform and I have some more details in this document is if you want to get more information on that. There's cybersecurity grants. That's tribes are eligible for honestly, I think there's probably bigger fish to fry than that right now. In terms of things that you might want to be putting your resources into. That here's another consumer recycling grant 75 million $15 million dollars per year, there's a $3 million tribal set aside. That's nationwide, so honestly, I probably wouldn't waste my time too much with that. I talked to you about the state digital equity grants where the governor can contract with tribes and C's or tribal organizations. There's nationwide orders of I guess it's about a $5 million Indian set aside. So we'll keep going beyond that. We talked about the the other thing, so why don't we go to the next slide if you can, if you can go to the one that starts appropriations summary. Now I'll just run through a couple of the one before that can you go back one? Yeah, right. Some reason it's not on there anyway. So I'll just go through this. You don't have to have the slide up for this one. So there's $60 million tribal set aside for fisheries projects through the National Marine Fisheries. Service, that's both for tribes and MCs. And, actually, I think you're you've probably gone past it, but that's okay. There's 170 There's $172 million for that, guys. For Pacific coastal salmon recovery. There's $11 billion for the Corps of Engineers Army Corps of Engineers that includes new starts, which are new projects that previously haven't been funded. 16 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs that Department of Energy. Bia has a tribal Climate Resilience Program. That's $216,000,000.40 $3 million a year. 130 million of that is for community relocation. I don't think there are communities in the Bristol Bay region unless I'm wrong, that need to be relocated. I think that's more in the chilis to region. But there's also $86 million for tribal climate resilience and adaptation for tribes and seas and tribal organizations. We talked earlier before about water and sewer BIA also has a small water and sewer program. It's about $200 million. We talked about the EPA water programs for service doesn't apply to you low income, Home Energy Assistance. There's $500 million for for LIHEAP and I think Bristol Bay Native Association runs a LIHEAP program. So there'll be more you know, there'll be more money available for that for that program. So I'm just going to go to Yeah. Going on to if you go to the end that starts almost to the end, that's the top of it says Division One appropriations. There is $150 million for marine debris removal and that's a program that Senator Sullivan championed.

And I think tribes and tribal organizations are eligible for that. There's $50 million for wildlife prediction, detection, observation, modeling and forecasting $400 million for restoring fish passages. By removing industry barriers and providing technical assistance. There's an Indian set aside of $60 million for that program. Which also includes native corporations, by the way. We talked a little bit about Corps of Engineers, but just to kind of outline the 11 billion that they have 1.5 billion it's for Rivers and Harbors. 2.2 point 5 billion for inland waterways. They have 2.5 billion for coastal storm risk management. Obviously, there's been a lot seems like there have been a lot of storms recently. Along the coast, hurricane and storm damage. If there's been any disaster declared in the last six years you're eligible for that money. 250 million for flood control and coastal emergencies. And then we talked about the about the Denali Commission at energy. There is $500 million for energy improvement at public schools. So those of you who are working at school districts, there's energy improvement money there, there's 3.5 billion for weatherization assistance and I'm pretty sure that Bristol Bay native bbna runs the weatherization program, and they've got money for hydroelectric projects for wind. You name it. There's $8 billion for electricity programs. Yeah. So let me just double check and see if if Bristol Bay is in there. Yeah. Bristol, Bristol Bay Housing Authority runs the weatherization program. So and then within Department of Interior let's see what of these have we not covered? I think we've covered most of this. Now. We talked about safe drinking water. There is $500 million for grants for at risk communities for fight wildfire mitigation. And that's to do you know, cut down dead and dying trees and things like that. There's 20 million for volunteer fire departments. We talked about Indian Health Service. And let's see yeah, the results for the for the on Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Bristol Bay was just a word Bristol Bay Native Association was just awarded a grant of a million dollars for that program. And that provides assistance to people who need help. paying their their heating bills. There's also a $500 million for general aviation airports, which are airports that are not commercial airports, but they're primarily general aviation, small aircraft so there's actually 500 small aircraft airports in Alaska that includes you know, runways and things like that. So if you need any help upgrading your runway or anything like that, there's a lot of money available for that. And I think that pretty much covers it. Port infrastructure, $2.2 billion $450 million a year is the last one. So in the we sent you two documents, the there's kind of an more executive summary that's kind of prettier and it's just bullets of information. So you might want to look through that and get kind of some basic information. And then this other document that I've been reading from that's highlighted, the the green highlights are the dollar amounts. If you're a federally recognized tribe, and you're eligible I highlighted that in blue. So you'll see right here, where it says federally recognized tribe on this chart that's up in native there's a color code at the beginning native corporations if you're eligible, I've highlighted that in a different color and if you're a tribal organization,

if your native nonprofit, it's highlighted in purple. So that helps you. Yeah, Native Corporation. If you're eligible, it's highlighted in yellow. So you can kind of if you're a native corporation, for example, and you want to find out what am I eligible for, you can go through this list and just look for yellow highlights and you'll see programs that you're eligible for. So this one is a lot more in the weeds and the kind of more overview summary, but I wanted to share it with you because in some cases it might have actual bill language or it has like if it says Indian tribes are eligible for I've actually included the language of how that's defined. So that you know, is it only federally recognized tribes or does it include Native corporations? So I think that basically covers it but like I said, if you have specific things that you're interested in that we shut the door so you don't have to listen to my dog bark

set up that. We're happy to either answer. emailed questions if you you can email questions that April or if you want to meet with us individually and talk about specific things. We're happy to do that. To. Any questions? I'm not hearing anybody.

Hi, I just wanted to throw out there if anybody has any specific questions about their community or projects that they are chasing, or specific areas such as erosion or any education or bridges, please feel free to ask them now. Lisa is an incredible resource that has been doing this her whole life and has been following this legislative process. So we would love to take your questions

I just have a comment. It's just this is there's just so much information here. It's it's kind of overwhelming and it's almost like I guess the general question that I come up with is where do you start? Alaska Native corporations specifically, are not naturally oriented to the grant, the grant world and so this is, this is all kind of new to me at least. And so, you know, since since there is so much opportunity out there, it sort of seems like to me this leads to almost a need for a new department within our organization specifically for grant opportunities. And it just you know, so you know this. This makes me think a lot of different things, but it's just like where do we get started? What What would be your best advice? It's we haven't, you know, really been exposed to these sorts of things before.

My advice is, what are your needs? That's, I think that's the best place to start. You know, there's a lot of what I would call cats and dogs in here like what do you what could you planting trees on your roads, but that's not your biggest need. So I would, I would think about what are your four or five biggest needs. And then if you want to talk to us, you know in terms of identifying what you would be eligible for, or if you want help trying to work with the delegation on specific things I can I can help you with that. But I would start with what are your needs? Do you have you know, I remember coming out to Dillingham when I worked for Senator Stevens and I went out with then Mayor Tilden and, and he was trying to show me some I think it was some erosion programs and I got he he left me in a truck and all of a sudden like the water came in and I just about drought and that kind of got my attention. I said Yeah, you really need some erosion. You need some help with some erosion here. So I think whatever it just looking around your community what do is that? You know, in account doesn't have to just be infrastructure. It can be other things to do you have I mean, there's a lot of money for you know, I guess and THC kind of covers the gamut on most of the health stuff and, and, and, but there's a lot of money for things for elders for for drug and alcohol programs for all I mean, all kinds of things. So if you can think about what are our biggest problems, is it transportation, do we have potholes, it is our runway need to be longer. Do we have Do we have a port problem do we want to build a road do we do we need housing? You know, obviously, prioritize.

Yes, if I could throw out there to Cameron is because of the wealth of opportunities and the size of opportunities as Lisa said frequently, we're never going to see this again in our lifetime the amount of money coming to Alaska. I think one of the best ways for any community. And I know you're looking at this from the business sense to is to sit down with some partners for any of these grant opportunities now is when if communities are interested in inner ties, they should be sitting down with their neighbors and there's two or three places in our region that have spoken for years. They want inner ties. Nobody's going to get this individually, but it's the village corporations or doesn't even have to be their own corporation because I know a lot of you all have different skill sets. But if the cities and the Bureau and the communities and the tribes in the village corporations can focus on some of the really big size projects that everybody's been dreaming of. And you get those letters of support, and you have a unified focus. I think you could pull up some amazing things and that if you find the project, find the dream basically and find the partners then you can call in somebody like Lisa and somebody like Joan to say, Okay, we know what we want. That's the biggest part of the whole thing is knowing what you want. There's a lot of people out there that can help you go get it. And these Lisa and Joan are people who are Alaskans familiar with rural Alaska, so they're solid, but figure out what you want and then there's going to be people to assist you in how to get it.

But you raised a good point and that is obviously we went through a lot of stuff I what I what I did previously, when when the American rescue plan act and some of the other legislation went through is I divided up the the bill and I had one I had one document that only had things that corporations were eligible for another document only what tribes could apply for another one only what tribal organizations are only health care or only housing. So we will we will do that again. And I can provide a document maybe we can distribute that through the to the village corporation organization and AFN also in the in the regional Corporation, a group so that you can you don't have to get kind of it's hard to sift through this stuff. It's hard enough to sift through this stuff. Even if you just had a list of what corporations were eligible for. So I will I will do that for you. I'll make a separate list of what corporations are eligible for and divide this up so that it's it's a little bit more digestible.

I'd like to comment to you your question about where do you begin? I know, I know, with clients that I work with, I would say, Do you have a strategic plan? How old is your strategic plan? Some folks have got one that hasn't been updated for, you know, five or 10 years. But still go back to what has been done by folks in your community who were leaders and that had community participation, who identified priorities then in that strategic plan, dig that out. Some of those strategic plans you can find on the alaska.gov website in the community database. They have an excellent storage system of taking, of keeping strategic planning documents and other other types of documents, some of them being Hazard Mitigation documents in their community database. system, that are relevant to your community and go get some of those strategic planning documents and look at what what your community has prioritized in the past and then update it because because a lot of these grant applications will ask, you know, or want to know, is this a priority in your community? Or did you just decide it was a priority? Is this something that your community backs, or do you just do you just think it's a good idea? Because all of these grants are to benefit the community, not just one entity, not one entity. It's for the whole community. So see if you can find some of those. And that would be some of those planning documents because that will be a really, really good starting place for you. And then you can update it with your leaders and the community. And and then that might be even a better starting place for you because you have a guide, and you can also state it in your application, that this has been a top priority for our community for 10 years, and we've never had the funding to do it. So it really raises it up. To the top for you.

Yeah, I like what APR said, this is your this is your chance to dream. This is this is the one time that there's money that your dream could actually become a reality. So I don't disagree. With looking at your strategic plan. But probably everybody you know, everybody has dreams if only this if only we could do that. And you know, you probably know in your heart of hearts. If we could if we could rule the world what would be the one or two things that we'd really love to have? And I would I would really look at those and you know, a lot of times there's many, many different agencies that have money that can solve your problem like like we were talking about broadband before. We have the Commerce Department that funds it FCC funds, Agriculture Department funds that economic development administration funds that there's lots of different people and that's true of almost any kind of thing you think of the two resources that are also really good that we haven't talked about at all, are the Rural Development Administration that has money to do all kinds of different community facilities and Economic Development Administration. They have grants right now that it's not infrastructure grants, but they have grants that are they have one right now called indigenous communities. I think it is. But the we'll send around the information on the to those two agencies because they have offices in Anchorage, and they have access to money and there's a lot of grant opportunities that you know are from the American rescue plan. After previous appropriations bills. And I would absolutely be talking to them that the woman who the woman who runs the Economic Development Administration used to be a Tribal Administrator in exec I think so.

Yeah. Obviously. Lisa, you have a question from superintendent Bill Hill. And Mr. Hill. If you can hear me you're muted.

Yes, I was just waiting to be recognized. Okay. We've learned how to use this a little bit over the past couple of years, so almost proficient at this point. I guess the question I have is, hopefully leaning on some of the years of experience that are represented here. I really appreciate the panel that's presenting this. One of the difficulties that the school district or has run into over the past is, is creating partnerships with our local villages, and it's particularly in times where there's some changes in in leadership that have developed over the past year. Do you know of any sort of arrangements that have been made in the past where, you know, for instance, a school district and or a village corporation, had some sort of had a agreement in place with the village to kind of take the lead on projects that might include grant funding, and basically provide the village with the opportunity to be a partner in that, but put most of the work on the shoulders of another entity at and if you do have a sort of a brief of that or an example or someone to contact? I'd appreciate it.

Well, I can answer that. I'm sorry. I just am working with galena where they have the Galena interior Alaska Learning Academy who has worked successfully with both the tribe and the city of Galena in very in many, many very dynamic projects that have been very successful there. And I can probably put you in touch with some of those folks if you wanted to, to talk with him and I know they have a memorandums of agreement. So that some of the times when a tribe is eligible to apply for a grant, but the city is not eligible for that purpose. Then the tribe will apply and then the city will manage it for them. And the school same kind of situation. So it is is it's been a good model that I've seen happening.

Remind me what what school district you're from. I'm with the Bristol Bay borough school district but I also have a dual role. Role as the president of the village preparation, public village corporation. So you know, we're interested in pursuing grants but often I guess an example is sort of the the broadband or I should say the 5g opportunity that came out for tribes in the past couple of years. Trying to get the get that across, you know, across the finish line, even though I'm not necessarily a part of the village itself, is very difficult, just depending on the capacity of the village. A lot of times the village corporation itself is better set for business operations, pursuing grants, reporting, you know, all the functions that are really required in a grant where a lot of times the villages are more oriented towards the social social needs that fall under for instance, prosphere Native Association so just trying to find ways to streamline some of those relationships and or documentation that would be approved by the Feds or state.

Well, every every grant is different. I'll tell you that. But I will say that most of the grants now reward partnerships and consortia because if you think about it, just in terms of our tribes, would they rather deal with you 129 Or would they rather deal with 12 let's say or do they want to deal with five applications for broadband from from Bristol Bay or do they want to deal with one and they reward people who, who work together? I did want to tell you that I was just before this call. I was on a call with the University of Alaska. And and maybe I'm getting a little far ahead but they're working on a program right now to bring some STEM programs into into the Dillingham schools to improve you know, math and science programs, so you might want to you know, I'll put you in touch with them because I think you know, there's there's some really kind of creative things going on right now and also with the with uh, with the Bristol Bay campus. There's I was talking to them about how we could there's a lot of programs that the Bristol Bay campus is eligible for, but they're not applying for for some reason, not just them. The rural campuses for University of Alaska throughout the state are not applying for grants that they could be getting. So that's what we you know, there's I think there's a lot of opportunities for partnership. And if you have some specific things you want to try to accomplish, I'd be happy to talk to you about you know, ways that you might go about doing that. Okay. Any other questions?

I have a question for Joan. You what, what Gleaner is doing sounds very, very interesting. And I think one of the one of the best things we can do as communities is share with others and do you think that they would be willing to sit down and highlight exactly how this partnership is operates?

That's a that's a really good question. I'm, I'm unsure if they would or not, and hopefully I didn't speak out of turn. But I will tell you that I'm proud of them because you don't see that very often in the villages. A lot of times there's politics that get in, in between some of these partnerships. And I, I really, I really am proud of the fact that they that they are basically just working together in using the skills and the resources that each of those entities bring to the table. And so I'd be happy to talk to them and see if they would I share.

That would be wonderful because we could put together a panel or a webinar that talks about, you know, what role each one of these entities has taken on and how they are managing to work together.

Okay, I'll talk to them. I know for them. It's kind of funny because they just think it's natural. They've been doing it for years. And I talked to him, I'm like, Do you realize how wonderful this is? You know, so So I'll talk to them.

The one thing one other thing I'll say, and that is, remember that the delegation, Senator Murkowski, in particular who sits on the Appropriations Committee and Congressman young Tues to a certain extent, they have the opportunity to do earmarks now as well. And there's a limit to how many you know they can do. But I can tell you as someone who got hundreds, I had to sift through hundreds of pages of stuff that people from every corner of the state would submit we want this this this Ness if you got a proposal from a region that said, you know, this is our main thing, and these different organizations are all supporting it. You want to fund that one because you could get a lot of bang for your buck other than these guys want. $3 for this and these guys want $34 For that, if you had kind of you know, that that gets to, you know, April's come in earlier. You know, I think it'd be wonderful if I were if I were in the Bristol Bay region. You know, I think a good thing to do would be to have a you know, maybe after the first of the year or to have a forum and say, what, what are our top priorities? Is there is there one or two projects that we could all work together, like education, for example. You know, what could the school districts be doing with the university with the native corporations where there can be internships with the National Science Foundation, with, you know, Department of Education with, you know, other federal agencies, and there's a lot of things that you could do that could be really cool. And Congress likes you know, I can tell you just from being the recipient, they like cool things that a lot of people support, because you can't fund everything's but so if you can do one project that hits a lot of buttons, you you love that?

Well, I know for years I've heard about from several different parts of our region about energize and between two or three or four different villages and it seems to me if those villages who are seriously interested in in building an inner tie that now is the ideal time to to get together as a unit and map it out and submit their plans for that. Yeah. So John and Lisa have put their contact information on the chat as I all of Joan's information is also available at the last municipal league. Again, if you go to the arpa.org they have a whole list of resources of different grant organizations. Joan is part of the program that the Alaska Municipal League and AFN have put together to provide grant counseling services so anybody with further questions, can contact that number and make an appointment and they get a half hour of free professional time, or or more and you can run your ideas about through people that have got a lot of experience doing this. Lisa has put her information down for the time that the navigator program is running. She's generously offered to do one to one counseling with communities which allows you to talk about the more pointed in particular needs of your community. And she has so much research in the legislative process in how to get what you want. And sometimes it's really important just not when you read a nofollow or you need a grant or you you want to project and you get that initial No, no doesn't always mean no. And, and especially I would say for some of the village corporations that that there is that it's worth going the extra mile on some of these because some of the legislation is not necessarily not necessarily geared to allow you to access some of the things that probably should be able to do it's a lot of the the Congress doesn't know what a village corporation is. But our delegation does, and Lisa and the delegation have had great success in being able to open doors to opportunities for different types of entities in Alaska. And, you know, we've said a lot of great things about the last municipal league, but I have to give a shout out to the girls and swamp see and check out their websites. These folks make great partners and if in the event, you're not a partner, at least those are the folks you're gonna need to go to get letters of support for your particular projects. Is there anything, Lisa that you'd like to add?

No, that's That's it. Okay,

Joan. No, I think that's it for me too. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on this call. And I encourage all of you who do have questions to call in call over at AML and, and call Don Wesley, she's the person that you'll call and she'll she'll walk you through the process to get a scheduled so that if you have any questions, then you want to just talk about some basic, basic information or just get some ideas and resources for grants that might fit what your programs and what your plans are. And your priorities are. Or like Lisa said, to dream big. You know, that's a really, really awesome point. Because I know with with the project that we we received a couple of years ago, it was the first time ever that there had been a a bucket big enough of one program money that we could actually go for a large, large project. And before that, before these large buckets of fundings came that where you could apply for 10 $20 million. You had to piecemeal it together from different grant programs. And all these different grant programs wanted to be the last funder, and it was the most complicated process and time consuming process, that by the time you had all the money together, oftentimes you had to redo the budget and the costs have increased and it was just kind of a frustrating process for a lot of people. So it's so exciting to see that there are these huge buckets of money out there right now that you can as Lisa said, dream big and go for that one thing, you know community hall or a new tribal office or a new clinic or something that's really important to your community that you never thought you could get before. So I agree with that.

So we will close with letting you know that this was recorded. It will be archived on the AFN navigator page. I think that Sarah is also going to try to put it on thumb drives and send it out to the communities in the Bristol Bay region or you know those folks who are on our list and also the printed information along with it. You have our contact information that it's on the chat but if you didn't get off the chat Jones is on the AML website and on the AFN as its Lisa and myself You can find our information there also, please don't hesitate to send emails score or call it thank you everybody. Thank you