About BNG
Built Not Given Youth Initiative was created to help students build what was never handed to them.
Built Not Given Youth Initiative exists to help young people understand that their story matters, their future has value, and their growth can be built through discipline, mentorship, opportunity, and purpose. BNG serves students who may lack access to creative tools, structured guidance, media education, leadership development, and meaningful exposure. Through storytelling, sports, mentorship, and accountability, BNG helps students build the confidence and character needed to move forward with direction.
Our Mission
Built Not Given Youth Initiative empowers youth through storytelling, media education, mentorship, sports, and leadership development, helping students adapt to today’s technology while building confidence, discipline, communication skills, and purpose.
Our Vision
Our vision is to build adaptable youth who use their voice, creativity, and technology with purpose, growing into confident leaders prepared to create opportunities for themselves and positively impact their schools, families, and communities.
Core Values
Discipline
Growth is built through consistency, effort, and responsibility.
Accountability
Opportunity must be matched with commitment, honesty, and follow-through.
Story
Every young person has a story with value, and storytelling can build confidence, identity, and purpose.
Character
Talent means more when it is supported by respect, integrity, humility, and responsibility.
Leadership
Students should learn to represent themselves, their families, schools, teams, and communities with purpose.
Access
Students deserve fair opportunities to learn, grow, be seen, and be supported regardless of resources.
Impact
Students should use their growth, platform, and influence to positively affect others.
BNG develops students who understand that talent may open a door, but discipline, character, accountability, and leadership determine how far they go.
Our Founder
Ruben Infante
Founder & President
Ruben grew up moving constantly, without stability, resources, or a clear picture of what his future could hold. Basketball became his survival. The ball went wherever life placed him next, and his game became his resume, the thing that let him blend in and be accepted in any community, even while carrying the weight of his parents’ divorce through his teenage years. He had real talent, but no way to maximize it. There was no money for camps, no one to point him toward resources, and the jobs he worked to make ends meet left him falling asleep in class. The grades slipped, and the pattern followed him.
The first turning point came when his high school guidance counselor, Mr. Wentsell, sat down with him and helped him complete his college paperwork. One credible adult, one practical act of belief, opened a door. Ruben walked on to a Division III basketball program, but the same pattern followed him there: working to survive, academic probation, financial strain, and no plan or mentorship to hold it all together. He returned home, kept playing at a community college, and earned his associate degree. The door had been opened. Everything after it still had to be built.
Before founding Built Not Given Youth Initiative, Ruben spent twelve years working with young people and adults in demanding human-services settings: residential youth care, school-based behavioral intervention, substance-abuse counseling, and autism services. That work taught him that behavior is information, that consistency builds trust, and that correction should protect a young person’s dignity.
He then rebuilt his own career from the ground up, earning a Bachelor of Science in Recording Arts from Full Sail University and working through professional live production and sports broadcast, including WWE NXT and four seasons with the Orlando Magic, along with freelance production support for events connected to ESPN and the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. From 2014 to 2017 he toured nationally with NASA’s FMA Live!, a STEM education production bringing science to students across the country. In Los Angeles, he worked in Hollywood post-production sound at studios including Deluxe Media, through editorial, dubbing, voice recording, and quality-control work. That work supported content for companies and platforms including Sony, MGM, Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Universal, and Paramount, and was connected to feature releases such as West Side Story, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Free Guy, and Jungle Cruise.
Most recently, Ruben taught media production, coached, and mentored students at a Central Florida private school. He is bilingual in English and Spanish, an ability he credits with helping him understand culture and connect effectively with the students and families he serves. BNG is the synthesis of everything that came before it: the behavioral specialist who understands the student, the engineer who builds the system, the producer who tells the story, and the teacher who transfers the skill.
Ruben’s path is the proof behind the name. Everything was built, not given. BNG exists so the next student doesn’t have to build alone.
Governance & Board of Directors
Built Not Given Youth Initiative Inc. is a Florida nonprofit corporation (Document No. N26000002003) and an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 41-4798448, incorporated February 17, 2026. BNG is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors responsible for the organization’s mission, oversight, and accountability.
Ruben Infante
Founder, President, and Director. Leads BNG’s programs, partnerships, and day-to-day operations.
Deseri Gonzalez
Director and Treasurer. Oversees BNG’s finances, financial records, and reporting.
Vanessa Gonzalez
Director and Secretary. Maintains corporate records, meeting minutes, and board documentation.
Accountability
BNG earned the 2026 Silver Seal of Transparency from Candid and maintains its records with the Florida Division of Corporations. The organization’s first federal Form 990-N and Florida annual report are due in 2027, following its first full operating year.
Built Not Given Youth Initiative Inc. is an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) public charity and Florida nonprofit organization (EIN 41-4798448). Contributions may be tax-deductible as allowed by law.