2010

The MAA Worldwide 2010 Global Academic Challenge

Giving Young People a Helping Hand

Jaddan Bruhn, Cedric Chai, Vivian Kong

ACCESSGRANTED ABOUT US

ACCESSGRANTED is a Sydney based foundation, established with initial support from the local offices of Microsoft, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Sigma Pharmaceuticals, Holden, Fosters and Nestle, to identify teenage parents who are seeking to overcome the situational constraints implicit in their early family creation and incomplete secondary education, improve social attitudes towards teenage parents and lift their work place participation, impacting the cycle of welfare dependence.

CONCEPT
The foundation endeavours to recognize and channel the underlying optimism, aptitude, and motivation of teenage parents, who would otherwise be denied the opportunity to manifest and demonstrate their natural abilities in a desired career and have thus far been unable to complete their high school education, through a structured work placement and accreditation program. The target candidate for the program are individuals whose education has been interrupted by a teenage pregnancy, yet whose underlying belief in the brevity of their unmet potential warrants the opportunity for a career of substance greater than they would otherwise be able to achieve. Statistically, the greatest concentration of our target candidate resides in areas of lower socio-economic status, reduced advantage, and barriers to workplace participation.

MARKETING OBJECTIVES
During the initial twelve months of the foundations operations, the key objectives driving our focus are an increase in workplace participation by teenage parents by 35%; successfully placing 91% of accredited target candidates in paid employment; capturing 3% of the Sydney recruitment market through our referral service.

THE PROGRAM
The foundation intends to fulfil its objectives through its work placement program. The purpose of the work placement is to allow the target candidate to demonstrate their capabilities and the fundamental skills that are needed for the workplace. To validate their skill set and achieve the accreditation of an ACCESSGRANTED PASS, an agreed upon criteria formulated by the foundation and its corporate partners would be based on the target candidates achieving an overall competency score exceeding 85% during their 3 month work placement in: Computer literacy Cohesive assimilation to the corporate culture Communication competency in written, numeral and interpersonal skills Office, clerical, and administration skills Time management and multi-tasking capabilities Problem solving Initiative, motivation and responsibility Professionalism and innovation Eye for detail Ability to articulate workplace issues or concerns

Achieving successful outcomes through this process would identify the desired characteristics in the target candidate. Identifying and validating candidates in this manner is core to the strength of the foundations credibility and expected longevity necessary to build the breadth of corporate partners.

ACCESSGRANTED CORPORATE PARTICIPATION

The foundation is tasked with focusing its resources on improving the long term career prospects for a social sector currently overlooked by mainstream recruiters, which is concurrently outside the scope of corporate programs tasked with nurturing talent based primarily on academic merit. The structure of the foundations program encourages corporate engagement, facilitating the execution of individual corporate social responsibility agendas; participating in a socially positive scheme, allowing them to gain visible community recognition and inclusion in all associated media events.

DATABASE CREATION AND MANAGMENT

Upon acceptance into this program, the participants will be asked to complete a detailed questionnaire covering demographics, psychographics, and career aspirations. The foundations work placement matching process is based on the information gathered, ensuring the participant is placed in the most conducive working environment and position to allow them to demonstrate and develop the skills and experience required to complete the program and further pursue their career. In order to support the ongoing activities of the foundation and to ensure its ongoing viability, an additional requirement for participants is their partaking in periodic market research activities with the foundations sponsors and corporate partners. ACCESSGRANTED concurrently operates as a recruitment agency for those who have completed the work placement program and have received an ACCESSGRANTED accreditation. A recruitment fee (equivalent to 15% of the roles annual salary) will be charged, with the revenue generated supporting the foundations activities. This fee is highly competitive relative to the industry standard.

SOCIAL CREDIBILITY
The foundations credibility is based on its capacity to select and place quality candidates in work experience placements in market leading companies, helping them achieve their career goals, in roles they would otherwise be precluded from competing for. High calibre candidates demonstrating hitherto untapped aptitude will generate constructive word of mouth for the foundation, positively demonstrating the beneficial outcomes generated by the program. Candidates accredited with an ACCESSGRANTED PASS will have demonstrated their motivation, ability, skills and attitude required to function in a working environment with hands-on aptitude not commonly possessed by tertiary qualified job seekers.

ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES
Teenagers equipped with the benefits of participating in our program will be able to overcome the career blocks faced by individuals lacking a secondary education through this opportunity to demonstrate and measure their current abilities. Attaining the foundations accreditation will entitle the individual to seek employment through our specialist employment referral service, ideally resulting in an entry level, career focused role in the area of the candidates demonstrated aptitude. The accreditation amplifies the potential to improve living standards and economic status for the candidates and their offspring which could result in beneficial long-term social welfare outcomes as well as the revision of downcast public opinions on the capabilities of teenage parents. The success of ACCESSGRANTEDs program may also result in the foundation facing competition from professional recruitment firms as they become aware of our strong outcomes.

ACCESSGRANTED COOPERATION WITH GOVERNMENT

Working actively with Centrelink to address the issues our candidates face, the foundation has agreed to accept their candidate referrals for initial assessment and compatibility testing. The foundation has the long-term potential to greatly aid Centrelink in improving the future prospects of potential candidates. In recognition and support of this, the foundation will have all candidates indemnity and liability insurance required for work placements underwritten by Centrelink. Centrelink has also agreed to provide the foundation with all required legal advice, documentation and pro forma contractual templates necessary for ACCESSGRANTEDs legal functioning.

PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITY
PRINT Print ads for the foundation will be placed throughout Sydney but will be focused mainly on low socio-economic status areas with higher rates of teen pregnancy. Informational brochures and A3 posters will be placed in Centrelink offices, obstetrician offices, Lamaze classes and Curves womens gym. This is to achieve maximum reach and frequency and to ensure a minimum of three touch points. Full page, colour, glossy magazine ads will be placed in Cleo and Cosmopolitan magazines, monthly, for the first 6 months. These two magazines were selected because of their statistically higher popularity among the target candidates; Cleo had a readership of 383,000 in March 2010 and a circulation of 128,183 from July to December 2009, and Cosmopolitan maintains its position as the number one young womens lifestyle title, selling 166,208 copies each issue with a readership of 617,000 readers. The role of these ads is primarily to create awareness, build brand equity, and to inform the public of the foundations existence and operations. DIGITAL Facebook and Twitter groups are to be created to generate awareness and encourage interaction among existing candidates and target audience. To generate additional awareness in the target audience, banner ads will be placed on Facebook to capture the attention of individuals who have an online presence and whose previous search history has highlighted the appropriateness of our foundation to them. Banner ads will also be placed on career sites such as Seek.com and Hippo.com and the Centrelink website. YouTube videos of both informational material and of testimonials of successful candidates will be uploaded to complement the media habits of the target audience. A free iPhone application will be developed to be a casual personality quiz to unearth underlying career aspirations that the target candidate may have an unwitting affinity for, but may have not previously seriously considered pursuing. The application approaches potential candidates in a non-confrontational environment to encourage interaction and to pierce psychological barriers that may hitherto prevented them from progressing in their careers due to their circumstances. Radio ads on Today FM 104.1 will be broadcasted at breakfast at 9 and the drive home because it is most listened to station by the people of the foundations core demographic. TELEVISION TV ads will be seen on Free to Air TV because that encompasses the main aspects of our target audiences television viewing habits. The ads will be aired on Channel 10 based on primetime slots for the teenage parents as well as on Channel 7, currently highest rated TV channel in Australia.

These ads will be to promote the launch event Knocked Up, But Not Down. Production costs will be $80,0000; advertising placement costs are free under a contra arrangement with our media partners whom will have exclusive access to our launch event.

ACCESSGRANTED SPOKESPERSON

Access Granted has secured the support of Pink! to act in the role of the foundations spokesperson. As a credible and respected role model to our target audience, Pink! was selected for her strong character, ambitious attitude and empowering self-confidence. In addition to presenting and headlining the foundations launch event, Pink! has undertaken to support and promote the work of the foundation in her print interviews and tv appearances, and to be available for foundation events 5 times per calendar year.

EVALUATION
The success of the launch phase is critical to the ongoing viability of the campaign. Close monitoring of all aspects of the foundations activity is vital to ensure that all objectives are being met, and to determine where variations to expected outcomes need to be addressed. The launch phase of the foundation will be evaluated primarily through measuring the brand recognition of the foundation and awareness of the nature of its activity amongst its target audience of prospective candidates. Equally important is the need to measure brand recognition and awareness of the foundations activity amongst market leading corporations based in Sydney that the foundation is progressively targeting for involvement, participation and potential sponsorship in the ongoing activity of the foundation. Evaluation metrics to be employed are qualitative and quantitative questionnaires and focus groups, Google analytics to measure the foundations online traffic (online advertising, website and social media), and data from Appstore to determine digital engagement with the target audience.

ACCESSGRANTED RECOMMENDATIONS

To ensure the foundation is functioning at its optimal operating efficiency, the foundations post launch growth strategy will include seeking out synergistic relationships with social welfare organisations that may have a symbiotic awareness and interaction with our target audience, to promote engagement with the foundation and broaden its appeal. Additionally, it is important for the foundation to identify and build relationships with market leading corporations based in Sydney that may have the scope and resources to participate in the foundations work placement program and recruitment services. The successful implementation of the foundations program in Sydney would, as part of its longer term strategy, ideally be replicated in major Australian cities within the first two years of operation. Leveraging the strength of the program and the social and financial benefits to our strategic corporate partners implicit in their participation, will grow awareness of our foundation and facilitate this organic expansion.

CONCLUSION
Access Granted has identified teenage parents with strong motivation and potential but incomplete education as an overlooked and ignored section of society whose future can be incredibly improved and empowered through our placement program designed to inspire, nurture and recognise their potential and to make them work-ready in a field they have natural aptitude for, but high barriers to enter. In conjunction with our network of corporate partners, our planned promotional activity and launch campaign will build awareness of the work of our foundation, drive engagement and participation from our target audience and facilitate the fulfilment of the foundations objectives and set the course for the foundations longer term goals of revenue generation and organic growth.