The Tribe’s Planning Department is placed organizationally within the Development Division. The Planning staff serves the Tribal Government’s three major divisions, together with the many various Tribal departments and programs within the three divisions, and also Tribal Administration. The Planners’ scope of service is quite broad, encompassing communications and collaborations with Tribal department directors, ranging from education to emergency management, from Tribal housing to Tribal forestry, and from economic development to historic preservation. The Tribe’s Planners, collectively, have gained more than 55 years of regular, full-time service in Tribal Government; and they command a strong breadth of knowledge in Tribal Government services. 

Their focus is primarily on federal grant opportunities’ pre-award planning tasks, research, professional writing, and the production of a variety of Tribal Government documents. Their goal is to work with Tribal leaders to strengthen special funding resources, human and fiscal resources, and Tribal assets; to lead a strategic planning process to conduct needs and capacity assessments for Tribal Departments; provide written documentation of findings; to conduct research on available discretionary and non-discretionary federal funding opportunities to meet prioritized identified departmental needs; to help identify gaps and resources from which to build community-based Tribal preparedness, prevention, and response strategies; to help MBCI in its efforts to elevate the importance of Choctaw Tribal identity, culture, language and history; and to regularly monitor the Federal Register and Grants.gov for all federally provided information germane to federally recognized Indian tribes.