Building the Bridge: How UDI Came to Be
In my last post I introduced Shopping Park, an under-resourced neighborhood in Uberlândia, Brazil, and Estação Vida, the community center that's been serving its kids since 2004. What I didn't get into is how a graduate school capstone project turned into an actual nonprofit organization.
By 2020 I'd spent about 12 years in project management, earned my PMP certification back in 2013, and was working on a Master's in Management. I needed a capstone project, and the pieces lined up: why not use it to build the thing I'd been quietly imagining for years — a U.S.-based organization that could receive donations and channel them to Estação Vida?
The problem I was solving was a practical one. Sending money into a Brazilian bank account from abroad is a confusing process if you've never done it, and even once you manage it, the gift isn't tax-deductible for a U.S. donor. Estação Vida had a Portuguese-language site set up to receive local support, but nothing for anyone outside the country.
Making contact
My first email to the center, in Portuguese, went nowhere. A few days later I tried Instagram instead and reached their social media manager, who put me in touch with Vinicius "Vinny" Nogueira Marra, the center's financial director. I laid out the idea plainly: an NGO and a website so people abroad could donate easily, with funds periodically transferred to the center's account, no salaries taken, and everything run under U.S. transparency and ethics standards.
Vinny's response was warm, and a video call followed. He caught me up on everything the center had built — a new Jiu Jitsu program, pandemic-driven emergency food assistance for families hit by rising unemployment, and the growing number of Venezuelan and African immigrant families arriving in the neighborhood. It was an encouraging conversation, and it gave me the green light to move forward.
Incorporation was the easy part
Given the modest scope of this phase — standing up the organization, not running a program — a fairly standard project management approach was enough: a project plan, a work breakdown structure, a Gantt chart. I'd initially considered incorporating in Missouri, where I have roots, but New Jersey turned out to be the simpler option. Business registration, incorporation, and an Employer Identification Number from the IRS all came through in a single afternoon — May 12, 2020 — entirely online.
Finding a board took longer than expected
Recruiting board members proved to be the harder task. Plenty of people I approached were sympathetic but too busy. It took most of June and July working through personal contacts before I had enough qualified, willing people.
The founding board came together with six members: myself, my two adult children, three other recruits, and Vinny representing the community center's interests. Under the bylaws, each partner NGO gets a board seat with full voice and vote, though — to avoid a conflict of interest — that seat can't also hold an officer role.
The inaugural board meeting was held on July 25, 2020. Vinny spent about half an hour walking the board through Estação Vida's history and daily life in the neighborhood — time well spent, since it was the first time everyone involved was meeting one another. By the end of the meeting, bylaws were approved, officers were elected, and the board had voted to pursue federal tax-exempt status.
Uberlândia Development Initiatives — UDI — was, for all practical purposes, alive. What came next, and what's shaped the organization since, is the subject of the final post in this series.
