In addition, people from terminated tribes could no longer attend Chemawa School and had to pay for medical services.

Five years after this resolution, a small portion of the original reservation was returned to Grand Ronde which is used today for timber, recreation, and traditional harvesting practices.

[7] The tribes began publishing Smoke Signals, then a monthly newsletter, in 1978; it has since shifted to a semi-monthly publication schedule, and a tabloid newspaper format.

[12] Since 1996, the tribes have generated most of their income by operating the Spirit Mountain Casino in Grand Ronde, between Lincoln City and Salem.

Six percent of the casino's profits goes to the Tribes' Spirit Mountain Community Fund,[12][13] which supports and funds various organizations in the following 11 western Oregon area counties: Benton, Clackamas, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook, Washington, and Yamhill.

[14] By 2017, the Spirit Mountain Community Fund had given more than $75 million to non-profit organizations,[13] making it Oregon's eighth largest charitable foundation.

They have developed "other tribal enterprises in construction and environmental management, real estate investment and inventory logistics services."

On the reservation, most Native Americans began communicating using Chinook Jargon, the trade language that had developed earlier.

During this period, children were being sent to Indian boarding schools and forced to learn English; all individual tribal languages at Grand Ronde became extinct as their last native speakers died.

As part of restoration, they established a formal language program for children, which they could support through revenues generated from gaming.

Generally, membership requires direct descent from a person listed on the rolls at particular times and a percentage of Native American ancestry from among the tribes in the Confederation.

To vote for council members, confirmed tribal members mail in ballots with verified signatures on file with the Tribal Election Board, and the forty-five days preceding the September General Council meeting is when the elections are officially held.

Attorney Gabriel Galanda defended the Tumulth descendants and has strongly opposed such "politically motivated" dis-enrollment.

In August 2016 the tribal Court of Appeals (en banc) overturned the tribe's mass dis-enrollment in 2014 of 66 living descendants of Chief Tumulth of the watlala Band of Chinuk, who had signed the 1855 treaty with the United States by which his tribe ceded communal land and agreed to the Grand Ronde reservation.

Efforts since the late 20th century to repatriate the meteorite to Oregon were not successful, but the CTGR (successor to the Clackamas, one of the confederation) reached a historic agreement in June 2000 with the American Museum of Natural History.

[19] The American Museum of Natural History of New York City bought the meteorite in 1906 from the Oregon Iron and Steel Company, which at the time owned the land on which it was found.

[20] The museum and CTGR tribe reached an agreement in June 2000 to share custody of the meteorite to preserve it for both religious and scientific purposes.

[19]In addition, the museum committed to establishing internships for Native Americans, to create new connections between the communities and make opportunities for young students.