Contact Details

Team Members

Ajay N Murthy
hippie.v02@gmail.com
021 04 666 04
Bachelor of Business – Operations Management @ Unitec
Auckland

Reagan Qiu
r.qiu@thebeacon.co.nz
021 259 9479
Bachelor of Digital Design @ AUT
Auckland

Community Group
Shore Youth Bank
Mentor
Joseph Merz – Alatus Group

yMedia Liaison
Aurelie Rivalant

Shore Youth Bank

Shore Youth Bank is a non profit organisation based on the North Shore that works with young people.
They are dedicated to supporting youth initiated projects and empowering young people them by
providing financial assistance and network contacts.

Shore Youth Bank provides small grants to fund young people’s good ideas to benefit their local
community. It is run by young people for young people.

Through YouthBank, young people can explore opportunities not normally open to them; handling
decisions about money, the power to make a change for good within their communities.

It’s about young people putting their ideas into action and practising their right to make decisions to
benefit their community.

By allowing young people to be on the board and become a part of the decision making process, they
are providing youth opportunities to enhance their leadership potential.
Shore youth bank was established four years ago as a pilot project in New Zealand based on a similar
organization in the UK. In their current scope of operations, they operate only in the North Shore
community.

YouthBank UK works on a different model where they are a centralized national body who help setup
local YouthBanks around the country which are run autonomously with the decision making power
retained at the local community level.

Shore Youth Bank was established as a pilot project in the country and was localized to meet the unique
needs of New Zealand youth.

It is run by a board of 9 young people between the ages of 14 and 24. All the board members are
volunteers from the North Shore Community. The board decide on the criteria for funding applications –
assess, grant or decline applications, attend and also report on funded events and projects.

Shore Youth Bank is unique in that, their audience is not just young people, but also includes the
community at large; this includes adults and local businesses too.

Initial Brief

Shore Youth Bank received funding from The Tindall Foundation to help them get setup and operate in
the first few years of existence. This funding was only available to them during the first three years and
now they are looking for a new sponsor.

At the initial meeting with the chair of the board, we were told that they would like us to work on
making them a video which would introduce their organization to potential sponsors. This was the initial
brief that we were presented.

They had planned to mail this video to potential sponsors by mail along with their brochures and also
email the digital copies with an email marketing campaign.

This is the reason why they approached yMedia and this was the initial brief we were presented.

We were presented with the option and opportunity of making a video, creating a physical mail and an
email marketing campaign.

Analysis of the functioning of Shore Youth Bank

We decided that the best way for us to understand how Shore Youth Bank operated was by attending
their board meetings. This way, we could interact with the whole board and listen to their opinions and
assess what their expectations were of us.
At the first board meeting, we got to witness the decision making process firsthand and also on how
they assess and disburse funds.

We had a long discussion with them and tried to get them to explain to us where they’d like to be in the
next few years as we realized that this was a question that any potential sponsor would ask them.

Identifying the Key Issue

The major issue that we found which needs to be addressed for Youth Bank is their need for “growth”.

“Growth” would encompass three main aspects of their operation:

1. Acquiring new sponsors

2. More exposure within the relevant demographics
3. Better internal structure within the community group including a streamlined funding
application process.

One of the weakest areas of Youth Bank’s operation is their out-dated application process. Right now
they require the following steps:

1. Applicant downloads and prints out form from a half-working website.

2. Applicant fills out form and then MAILS it to Youth Bank.
3. Youth Bank admin then SCANS the application form and turns it into a PDF.
4. Youth Bank admin then emails the PDF as an attachment to the rest of the board.

Essentially we want to build an online application system for them.

1. Applicant fills out form online.

2. All board members receive an email notification with full applicant details.

Addressing the Key Issue

After we acquired more knowledge about the day to day operations of Shore Youth Bank, we decided to
expand from our original brief and take on a much more challenging task. Our central focus now
revolves around one particular word: growth.

The Youth Bank board had expressed the interest of expanding in the near future and their current plan
of acquiring new sponsors is simply the first hurdle that they must conquer. So in terms of growth, we
identified three key areas that need improvement. First of all, they require the production of a suitable
promotional video directed towards potential sponsors. The reason why we opted for a video as
opposed to the conventional booklet is because this embodies the characteristics of youth through its
association with digital media. The overall aesthetic design of this video needs to be dynamic and, for
want of a better word, “youthful”. Production aspect aside, the video also needs a suitable platform to
be broadcasted on. This means that Youth Bank needs to seriously renovate their current website.

Another area of expansion or growth that we targeted was the youth demographic. In order for Youth
Bank to expand into a nationwide operation, it needs to have more exposure within the youth
community. To achieve this, we planned a second video to be made which would directly target youth
and tell them about the possibility of funding from Youth Bank. At the same time, we also want to
streamline their very outdated application process. In this sense, the new website would serve a dual
function both as a platform for displaying the new promotional material and also to host the new
streamlined, on-line application process.

To summarise, we produced:

• One video targeted towards potential sponsors.

• One video targeted towards youths and encouraging them to apply at Youth Bank.
• A new website to host the videos and also the new on-line application process.

The new website we built is currently being hosted on http://blog.ajaymurthy.com/. We couldn’t upload
it to their domain www.youthbank.co.nz due to some isp and server hosting problems that were beyond
our control.

Edit: We are glad to inform you that the ISP issues have finally been resolved and you may now see
the new site in all of its glory at http://youthbank.co.nz.

The two videos can be found on the “Youths” and “Sponsors” sections respectively or alternatively, they
can be viewed from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2B5OBtKABE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOyyLnhA6uI

Long term benefits

We would definitely like to think that Youth Bank can gain some long term benefits from our work.
Hopefully, the videos would be able to help them to gain new sponsors and youth participants for the
next year. It is inevitable that the videos would become outdated but the infrastructure and the
streamlined application process that we have set up for them within the new website will definitely
make things a lot easier in the foreseeable future.
Our biggest challenge

The biggest challenge we faced was time management. Due to the epic scale of our project, we had to
be very careful about how long we spend on each portion. Having said that, producing two videos and a
website in three weeks is still no small feat (we used the other 5 weeks to get to know Youth Bank and
sort out actors + film gear). We overcame this hurdle by working hard and fast.

Our blog

We used our blog effectively to outline our production process. You can find our blog at
www.youthbankproject.blogspot.com

Our Mentor

Joseph helped us to clarify our ideas. His extensive business knowledge and experience helped us to
identify the major weaknesses within Youth Bank. The main thing we learnt from him is to “never set
realistic goals”.

Team management

Well, there are only two of us so it was really easy. I would pick up my phone and either call or text him.
Done.

Our most memorable moment

Realising at 5:58 that the reason why it’s called an “online submission form” is because it is actually
ONLINE. So I typed this word document up for nothing. Time to copy paste and pray that it gets sent
through.
We deserve to win!

There is never a correct answer for this question. I give up.