This article presents a selected view of a research project developed in Brazil. The focus of the project was to investigate the modus operandi of 18 NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) and their relationship to the development of educational curricula and practices in music. Further, it provides an analysis of NGOs as an opportunity to learn alternative pathways for teaching and learning in music education. A methodology based upon notions of "place-centered education" (Gruenewald & Smith, 2008) was used as a tool to "sense making" as well as to address the interaction with the drastically different propositions observed in three major cities in the country; namely Salvador, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre. Interviews, observations, and audio-video documentation helped form a picture of how initiatives to educate in and through music can be powerfully divergent in their modes of production, but interestingly connected in their emphasis upon 1) self-generated knowledge; 2) intersections between local musical-cultural practices and global aesthetic needs; and 3) politically conscious music education leadership; 4) pedagogical practices situated inside a larger social framework. The article concludes by offering a conceptual model that places the possibilities encountered in this "third-sector."