Our Commitment to Charity

At NorthStar, we believe it is important to give something back. We are committed to supporting charities that help those less fortunate than ourselves and help improve the world around us.  With this in mind, we have developed a formal set of charity donation guidelines which commits our company to helping charitable causes on a regular basis.
 

Working in the financial services sector, we have a particular interest in charities who try to increase financial literacy and education as this ties in with our mission to help improve the financial lives of those we work with.

Our Chosen Charity

About MyBnk

MyBnk is a charity that delivers financial and enterprise education programmes directly to 11-25 year olds in schools and youth organisations. MyBnk have helped 160,000 young people learn how to manage their money and make enterprising choices through fun and interactive sessions. Young people are at the heart of everything MyBnk do and help them design programmes through their Youth Advisory Panel. MyBnk also provides enterprise experiences using real money and ethical products and runs the youth homeless prevention programme, The Money House. MyBnk projects are proven and evaluated by The Money Advice Service.

Why They Do It

UK personal debt is over £1.5 trillion and 90% of the UK population have never received any form of money management lessons. Nearly half of 16-25 year olds name debt as their biggest fear. In an ever tightening job market, this generation will have to make smarter financial decisions and create their own opportunities. Recent studies show teachers and parents lack the confidence and expertise to effectively teach young people how to manage their money.

Where They Do It

MyBnk currently operate in schools and youth organisations in London and its surrounding areas, the South Coast and South West and North of England. From ARK Academies to the Prince’s Trust, MyBnk have forged partnerships with over 750 organisations including Leaving Care Units, Pupil Referral Units and Young Offenders Institutions to ensure we reach out to the most disadvantaged and financially vulnerable young people. MyBnk experts carefully map workshops into each school’s curriculum, and embed financial capability into youth organisations’ existing support programmes for young people. MyBnk also has extensive experience designing projects and training programmes for other organisations.

MyBnk Impact

MyBnk are helping to create a generation of informed financial consumers who engage with the financial system so it works for them, not against them. MyBnk programmes increase financial awareness from an early age, setting young people on a positive trajectory and helping them understand how the decisions they make around money will affect their futures.

MyBnk give young people a ‘reality check’ of the cost of independent living and the consequences of unsustainable debt. But we also demonstrate the rewards effective money management brings – this affects behavioural change and encouraging them to develop a responsible and informed attitude towards money to stay in control of their finances. MyBnk also provides the opportunity to access small interest-free loans to turn young people’s business ideas into reality. This gives an exciting, tangible experience of learning by doing. Young people develop enterprise skills such as the ability to assess risk and learn from failure, skills which will enable them to face an increasingly competitive job market. They are able to implement their own ideas and increase their self-belief and confidence in seeing them come to fruition. The real life nature of MyBnk’s enterprise programmes is key – young people have to convince others of the validity of their ideas and are given loans (not grants) to make them a reality.

What We Give to Charity

• An annual charity donation
• £20 donated for every new client recommended to us by an existing NorthStar client
• At least one major fund-raising event each year

Our 2018 Charity Fundraising Event

In May 2018 we took part in the Isle of Wight Challenge alongside 1,700 other participants to raise money for MyBnk. The Isle of Wight Challenge is a 106km (66 mile) non-stop walk around the coast of the Isle of Wight.
 
We managed to walk 44 miles (70km) of the 66-mile (106km) course before being forced to retire. Looking at the official data, this year may have seen the highest attrition rate so far with 35% of participants on the ‘full-island’ challenge failing to finish. This was probably due to the sapping temperatures this weekend and a 15km stretch of the course that was more akin to a ‘tough-mudder’ with participants ts having to wade through ankle-deep bog, on and off for miles. This part was both mentally and physically tough.
 
It brought home the risks and stresses an event like this can cause as we were forced to contact the event organisers twice along the way – once when another participant walking near us suffered a broken ankle and other who collapsed with exhaustion right in front of us just after the halfway point.
 
We were gutted to not complete the full event but equally very proud to have walked almost non-stop for 44 miles. We knew we could have opted for the quarter-island or half-island challenge (or event the full-island challenge over 2 days) and stood a much better chance of finishing, but we wanted to push ourselves as far as we could and test our limits.
 
We’re really please to have raised over our target of £1,000 for MyBank and they’ve told us this money will help over 100 young people attend their workshops, helping them learn vital money management skills to take charge of their futures.