Outreach

Outreach is critical to the success of the Buy-Back Program and occurs throughout implementation at a location.

The Program and Tribes work together to ensure that landowners on and off the reservation (a) are aware of the Program, (b) understand the opportunity to sell their fractional interests for fair market value and the benefit of the Tribal community, and (c) have the assistance they need to make informed decisions and complete the process if they choose to sell. In addition to achieving those goals, effective outreach facilitates financial education for landowners, encourages land use and estate planning, and helps locate landowners without an address on file (known as Whereabouts Unknown or WAU).

Outreach Resources

The Program recognizes that Tribal leaders and members know best how to reach their citizens. Accordingly, the Program enters into agreements that outline the role that Tribal governments have in the Program's implementation. To support outreach by Tribes and partner staff in the field, the Program provides various information and materials.

Below are a variety of resources that Tribal and field staff can use to inform and conduct outreach. The Program will continue to update and add additional resources as they become available.

Outreach Toolkit

The Buy-Back Program has created a toolkit of outreach materials that can be downloaded and edited by Tribal and partner staff for use in their outreach activities. These templates allow Tribes and staff involved in outreach to directly edit useful outreach materials, and can be used as a starting point when developing outreach materials for Program implementation.

Informational Materials

Sample purchase offer package documents can be found at the Accept an Offer page.

Whereabouts Unknown

Whereabouts Unknown (WAU) is the term used to describe Individual Indian Money (IIM) account holders without current address information on file with the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration (BTFA). Without an address on file, the Program cannot mail an offer to the WAU landowner. Through outreach activities, the Program seeks to identify WAUs and obtain up-to-date landowner addresses in order to send offers.

To update the address associated with an IIM account, or to report knowledge of a landowner whose whereabouts are unknown, please visit BTFA's website, contact the Trust Beneficiary Call Center at 1-888-678-6836, or visit an BTFA office.

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