Diversity Policy

The Bois Forte Band provides opportunities regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, or disability and adheres to Indian preference in employment in accordance with federal and tribal law.

Donor Policy

In accordance with federal and tribal laws regarding donor privacy and data security, KBFT does not disclose donor information to third parties not rent donor information to, or exchange such information with political organizations and/or candidates.

Financial Statements

Completed audited statements are available for public inspection during business hours at the KBFT studio located at 13090 Westley Drive, Nett Lake MN, or can be requested by mail at the following address:

Bois Forte Tribal Government
5344 Lake Shore Drive
Nett Lake, MN 55772

Governing board compliance

KBFT is governed by the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, a constituent Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, organized and operating pursuant to the Revised Constitution and Bylaws of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

Open Meetings

The Bois Forte Tribal Council regular meetings are scheduled every 3rd month beginning in the month of July of each year, on a date designated by the Reservation Tribal Council for that purpose. The Reservation Tribal Council shall designate one of its regular meetings as the annual meeting of the Band. Regular meetings shall be held at a public place within the territory of the Bois Forte Band. Special and regular meeting are announced on the Band’s website at www.boisforte.com.

Senior Management Meeting

• George J. Strong – General Manager
• Marty Connor – Programming Manager
• Dale Luginbill– Business/Development Coordinator
• Darren Landgren – Digital Communications Coordinator

Tribal Council

Cathy Chavers – Chairwoman
Tara Geshick – Secretary/Treasurer
Robert Moyer – District 2 Representative
Travis Morrison – District 1 Representative
Shane Drift – District 1 Representative

2022 Local Content and Service Report

1.Describe your overall goals and approach to address identified community issues, needs, and interests through your station’s vital local services, such as multiplatform long and short-form content, digital and in-person engagement, education services, community information, partnership support, and other activities, and audiences you reached or new audiences you engaged. 

KBFT’s overall guiding operating principle has been to serve our community of Nett Lake, MN on the Bois Forte Indian Reservation. KBFT’s owner charged KBFT with the mission of keeping all its public informed of developments and happenings as it establishes policy and action through community engagement and focusing on partnerships with their government/community programs. The Bois Forte Band of Chippewa serves its membership with supportive services that address the socioeconomic, health, and educational disparities along with the civic responsibilities it has to its residence. To this end KBFT staff are involved with various committees and boards that we attend on a regular basis throughout the year to provide our input as residents and stakeholders of our community. From these meetings, KBFT staff are able to participate in the discussions that address any Social, Economic, Medical, Health or Educational concerns. As concerned community members who operate their (Bois Forte Band Members) local media outlet, each of us carries the issues addressed to either our operational meetings or individually create content as suggested from the latest meeting minutes which might be used to educate and create awareness for our listenership and in particular, the Bois Forte Band Members who tune into KBFT. Each KBFT staff member continues to do interviews or invite Tribal departmental staff to come on the air and tell listeners either how their program can help them with the challenges our community members face. The Interviews serve as a great option to let community members know when, where and how the tribal programs are going to disseminate helpful information to those that are listening or attending a KBFT event. For example, Bois Forte Health Services program has been a steady partner for highlighting their awareness campaigns especially in helping our community members navigate the changing restriction conditions during the last part of Covid-19 Pandemic. Bois Forte’s HHS program also kept their domestic violence awareness event in place for 2022 which was a great opportunity to partner and increase knowledge about the services they provide and how to reach out for help. KBFT utilized web-based services to broadcast longer interview segments or less edited (longer) versions of interviews that were used to create shorter on-air broadcast pieces for quick listener consumption. Our hosts alluded to the additional content available on our Youtube Channel and gave interested listeners the opportunity to listen to nearly raw audio while they viewed a web camera view of the lake and current weather conditions here in our village. In the future we will develop this option further to make use of the abundant content that never really makes the airwaves as a finished broadcast piece.

2.Describe key initiatives and the variety of partners with whom you collaborated, including other public media outlets, community nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, the business community, teachers and parents, etc. This will illustrate the many ways you’re connected across the community and engaged with other important organizations in the area.

KBFT continues to partner with the Bois Forte Heritage Center in presenting a winter storytelling event that creates traffic to their facility as host for the storytellers. KBFT secured all talent for the public performance event. KBFT recorded all the audio from the event and created Cultural content of interest to our listeners for later broadcast and archive. Numerous Bois Forte Tribal Government programs partner regularly to provide program detail information over the airwaves either from interviews done in our studios or through remote broadcast at events they host for the community. The events might be related to special meetings or community meetings that address community concerns, issues or just simply wanting feedback on issues affecting the Bois Forte reservation. Native Public Media continued to partner with KBFT in 2022 with two additional awareness messages to bring specific culturally targeted and appropriate COVID-19 public service announcements to help educate and promote vaccination among tribal communities as part of a nationwide campaign. AMPERS: KBFT is a dues-paying member of the Association of Minnesota Public & Educational Radio Stations that serves every corner of Minnesota and through our membership we can partner with 17 other stations in the State of Minnesota to share content, public service announcements and special awareness campaigns through the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, The Minnesota Department of Human Services and Department of Natural Resources. This is by far the most beneficial partnership KBFT enjoys as it provides the opportunity to share our content and share more facets of life within our village, and more so the Bois Forte Reservation’s priorities to its community. KBFT also appreciates the revenue AMPERS helps to generate through its relationship with State lawmakers, Governmental decision makers and Potential Underwriters who want to get their message to a Native American media outlet.

3. What impact did your key initiatives and partnerships have in your community? Describe any known measurable impact, such as increased awareness, learning or understanding about particular issues. Describe indicators of success, such as connecting people to needed resources or strengthening conversational ties across diverse neighborhoods. Did a partner see an increase in requests for related resources? Please include direct feedback from a partner(s) or from a person(s) served.

KBFT most obvious successful initiative started in 2021 and carried into 2022 was our Morning Show titled “The Benner Show”. The show also reprised and ran in the afternoon. The Benner Show created significant community engagement and was gathering a large following as it took shape. The Benner Show raised KBFT’s listenership to record levels during the times it aired. Sadly, it was a brief run, but it was nice to see the potential and will give us a goal to recreate in the future with the same or higher level of engagement and involvement from our listeners, donors, and underwriters. The show’s key to success were the prizes offered daily and all the supportive local businesses and Tribal programs that participated by providing those prizes and helping to create a buzz in our community and surrounding areas. We have web streaming statistics that confirm the increased listenership and involvement through the number of phone calls, in-kind donations and overall goodwill expressed by listeners during the hours of 7am to 9am and again from 1pm to 3pm in the afternoons when the Benner Show aired. It was nice to be part of an effort that added a personal touch while offering homegrown content right from the community we serve. A community member stepped forward to develop a local show that was supported by in-kind donations such as baked goods, small prizes like small kitchen appliances and utensils and care packages for sanitizing and cleaning supplies along with gift certificates for local businesses, restaurants & grocery stores which were provided by community members, Tribal programs such as Human Services, Health, Transit, & Housing and quite a number of local Businesses themselves. The Benner Show created an environment where our community members felt good and allowed them to help one another.

4. Please describe any efforts (e.g. programming, production, engagement activities) you have made to investigate and/or meet the needs of minority and other diverse audiences (including, but not limited to, new immigrants, people for whom English is a second language and illiterate adults) during Fiscal Year 2022, and any plans you have made to meet the needs of these audiences during Fiscal Year 2023. If you regularly broadcast in a language other than English, please note the language broadcast.

KBFT‘s listener base and home community is concentration of American Indian or Native American population. Native Americans represent .01% of the US population and KBFT Programming is targeted to provide Native American music, news, arts, and cultural topics of interest for the residence of Nett Lake, and the Bois Forte Indian Reservation in general. As for language today, English is the most used form for everyday communication in our small Native American community. Although historically the residents in our service area (Nett Lake, MN) spoke our own specific dialect of Anishinaabemoin, which is the original language of its people before European contact. Our community leaders have designated KBFT as a vital teaching tool to not only preserve but assist in the revitalization of its use here in our community. Fluent speakers who grew up speaking Anishinaabemoin are passing on. Currently there are less than 5 who have an opportunity to actively use it daily during conversation. The Anishinaabe language is essential to Cultural and Spiritual understanding. We know the situation is dire and a few KBFT staff have taken it upon themselves to learn and share as much of the spoken language as possible. We are learning at our own pace but not fast enough. There is frustration with concerned elders and their heartbreak is palpable in that they know now that the language will be lost as a new generation of learners try to carry on as best they can. There are no current official research statistics that have kept up with the scope of language loss but it is evident through the deaths of our community elders here in our village over the last 6 years or so. KBFT doesn’t have trackable statistical numbers to say if or how our programming is making a difference, but one certainty is that we will continue making new Anishinaabemoin content daily to support as much preservation and usage in our daily broadcast in 2023 and beyond. I cannot report as to the level of fluency within the community yet, but there has been a noticeable increase in language usage among our youth in school and in their homes. KBFT has made a concerted effort to provide training and broadcast assistance to incorporate Anishinaabemoin language components into every hour of programming. For example, every top of the hour continues to be announced in Anishinaabemoin. Each announcer greets their listeners in Anishinaabemoin. KBFT continues to produce a “Word of the Day” and “Phrase of the Day” segments that air every hour. KBFT also started a 2-hour Language Show co-hosted by a community elder where she shares community history and cultural teaching along with language lessons as she speaks on the air. “The Karen Drift Anishinaabemoin Radio Show” airs every Tuesday and Thursday from 10am to Noon. KBFT is involved with the many aspects of the tribal government through our everyday operations. We may run into Tribal Government or related Community staff during a meeting where they might bring up issues like health disparities and projects that address issues they are currently focusing on and perhaps have a budget to promote awareness and education on the issue and how it impacts community members. The Tribal programs are aware of research studies related the medical and social services field, so in a roundabout way we feel we are always doing something that supports their efforts. We assist them by creating a larger listenership in addressing and educating our community members about the disparities and the resources available to mitigate the problem. We rely on our Tribal program partners and their expertise, research data and narratives because they are the experts on these complex topics. We will continue to align ourselves with tribal programs focused on wellness and well-being in 2023 and beyond.

5. Please assess the impact that your CPB funding had on your ability to serve your community. What were you able to do with your grant that you wouldn’t be able to do if you didn’t receive it?

Funding has afforded KBFT the opportunity to be relevant in our community of service and the Northern Minnesota region. KBFT gets to create content and serve as a conduit for those in distress or needing help to the find the assistance they require through on-air announcements that create awareness . CPB funding made it possible to share information that helped listeners make informed choices about the changing conditions of the Covid-19 Pandemic as Federal State and Local Government each wound down their Pandemic Policies and Health Guidelines to varying degrees and levels. Add to that KBFT was able to keep the Bois Forte Band membership aware of its own Tribal policy changes throughout FY2022. CPB funds also kept KBFT listeners abreast, informed with truthful reporting of the facts that related to nationally related conspiracy theories promoted by fake news surrounding The 2022 Election Deniers and the subsequent Big Lie/January 6th Riot Conspiracy. CPB funding afforded KBFT the ability to present reliable trustworthy news through its financial support that allowed KBFT to secure affiliate member fees and pay for subscription content through National Public Radio (NPR) and the utilization of satellite delivery service to our studios as provided by the Public Radio Satellite Service (PRSS). Each was vital in keeping our community properly informed.

Financial Statements and Independent Auditor’s Report September 2021&2020