Driven by the desire to integrate people whose stories were marked by the contributions that the University can provide, Unicamp alumni created in 2020 the Patrons Heritage Fund Association, independent non-profit institution. Their objective is to promote initiatives and support projects that help in the training of students and the development of the university community, including teachers, researchers and staff. To date, the association has been working on offering mentoring on career guidance and promoting events, such as Hackaton Patronos, aimed at creating solutions for the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Notices will soon be launched to support extracurricular projects and entrepreneurial and innovation initiatives.
To develop the projects, the Patronos Association operates through the management of an endowment fund. Through financial donations, assets are created and invested and the income obtained is used to support initiatives. As a result, the original heritage remains unchanged and can grow and perpetuate itself over time. Also known as endowments, endowments are common in large universities in the United States and around the world. In Brazil, law 13.800/2019 made it possible for public institutions to enter into partnerships with fund managers of this type to support education, science and technology projects.
To date, the Patronos Heritage Fund has 145 donors and accumulates assets of R$1,2 million. The entity is made up of 27 volunteers responsible for managing the fund and operating the projects. To do this, they organize themselves into an investment committee, which allocates the fund's resources, and a fiscal committee, responsible for auditing accounts. Raising donations and developing projects are carried out by an executive board, which is supported by the decisions of a board of directors and a general assembly. "Our idea was to develop a project in which it would be possible to give up a little of our time, mobilize Unicamp alumni and, through it, support the development of students and the academic community as a whole, offering a channel for people to contribute to this", comments Tulio Prado, CEO of the Association.
Career trail, hackathon and other ideas
Initially, the Patrons Association focuses on developing specific projects that involve financing extracurricular initiatives and also benefits such as guidance and mentoring on careers with market professionals. These are jobs that, even though they require smaller financial investments, make a difference in the students’ education. "As we have more resources, we will be able to support larger projects, such as large research projects that require the purchase of equipment or the installation of a laboratory, for example", explains Tulio.
The first notice launched by the association was career paths, with mentoring aimed at students in the last two years of graduation. In total, 40 students from 20 different courses were selected, including 30% black and brown and 50% women. Recipients will receive individual guidance from market professionals, through monthly training on a specialized mentoring platform. The opening of the program is scheduled for June 12th.
Between the 28th and 30th of May, Hackaton Patronos will take place, a programming marathon in which teams will have to develop technological solutions for the socioeconomic problems generated by the covid-19 pandemic. The projects will be evaluated by a judging panel and the winning team will receive a prize of R$5. The Extracurricular Program notice will be released on June 20th. With it, students will be able to submit proposals that will be evaluated according to the social impact they can cause and also by adherence to the criteria defined by the association and the community of benefactors. Each project may receive support of up to R$5.
In 2022, the association already plans to carry out a program similar to that of support for extracurriculars, but aimed at free initiatives that still need guidance to direct their development. "We want to identify major themes, which are of interest to most students, and help these people to develop these projects. What will these projects become? We don't know yet, they could become an extracurricular initiative, an association, even a company", he details.
Investments for the future
In addition to the possibility of allocating resources for the development of projects, the work of the Patrons Association aims to foster a culture that is still incipient in the country: uniting generations of people who graduated from public universities and who can allocate part of their resources, or even their time or knowledge, to enrich the training of new professionals. "The potential impact of this work is difficult to measure, but it can be huge. I, for example, did not have the opportunity, at the end of my degree, to talk to someone who was already ahead in their career and discuss my path. I'm sure that the people who went through this process will have something more that I didn't have", points out Tulio Prado.
To this end, the association also counts on the participation of students, so that they can get involved with the alumni community and this culture even during their undergraduate studies. "It is very motivating to see that a student, who is in the second year of graduation, can see value in this idea, in the same way that a former student, graduated 30 years ago, also sees value in it. Both can then contribute in different ways ", he evaluates.
Information on how to contribute to the Patronos Patrimonial Fund and notices of projects under development are available on association website.
