There are three main areas that separate the Northwest Tribal Emergency Management Council and the National Tribal Emergency Management Council from all other EM/HLS groups out there:

The NWTEMC-NTEMC remains committed to Sovereign Immunity, assisting our Tribal partners with building infrastructure and internal capacity. There are many groups out there that want to come into the Tribe and be the Incident Commanders, the Incident Management Team, and the First Responders. We want to continue to help our Tribal Nations remain in the driver’s seat of the their own incidents, and the best way that we can assure this is to continue our work in the areas of sharing information, training, skill sets, resources and best practices.

We believe that Public Safety and Public Health are Trust Responsibilities of the Federal Government, and therefore, do not charge dues or membership fees to be a part of our organization. Although this makes sustainability difficult at times, we do not believe that our Tribal Nations should have to pay for what the Federal, State and Local Partners are receiving in the way of grants and technical assistance. Therefore, we continue to work hard on bringing grant dollars into the individual Tribal Nations, training opportunities to our Tribal Lands, and Technical Assistance to Indian Country that continues to help build our emergency management and homeland security programs, free of charge.

We are not a response organization. We believe very strongly in our mission:

To provide guidance and tools for member tribes to develop sustainable and all-hazard approaches to Emergency Management and Homeland Security, through an approach that emphasizes both inter and intra jurisdictional cooperation to maximize resources in mutual aid, training, exercises, planning, and equipping by sharing information and best practices.

Because we are a very small non-profit, we have relied heavily on consortium grants, specific contract work that is provided at severely discounted rates for our member Tribes and the private sector. This year, the NWTEMC has partnered with Sourcewell  (previously known as the National Joint Powers Alliance®), a national municipal contracting agency committed to serving our Members purchasing needs.

We are both driven to provide efficient public service through contract purchasing solutions and other related programs. We are only able to do this as we work together, creating a unified purchasing alliance that is valued by both Sourcewell and the NWTEMC-NTEMC. We will now have access to more than 260 companies that have been vetted through this partnership. 

Click here for more information.  Your membership is free. Sourcewell