The plan is to develop the Montana MMIP into a nonprofit organization that works full time to organize and educate Native Americans about everything from human trafficking to sexual assault.

That charitable status is what MMIW USA now has, through its partnership with Tryon Life Community, an Oregon nonprofit. Maytubee-Shipman moved beyond publishing missing persons reports to be more proactive. MMIW USA now helps indigenous families pay for the funeral costs and grave markers. In Portland, where the organization is based, the site helps organize volunteer search parties for missing Native American children, two of whom were recently found by the searchers who knew the girls better than local law enforcement.

Portland has a liaison that interacts with the Native American community on missing persons cases, something for which MMIW USA has advocated.

“We were strictly in the beginning informational and of course we’ve tried to find these individual women. And one year into this, we had families from across the United States writing to us. It was always the same story, they were abandoned. It’s not unique when every single family experiences it,” Maytubee-Shipman said.