The Alumni Bank

http://www.thealumnibank.com

We are a young company focused on helping people borrow and loan within their communities. The purpose of this site is to help alumni communities in particular. When a student needs some financial help, it is more and more difficult to get a credit card, etc. Our site let's them ask their alumni community (and our list of registered lenders) for a loan.

So far we have built a demo site at http://www.thealumnibank.com, but are not happy with the aesthetic or user experience. We are looking to really upgrade the entire project and convey an image of professional and sophisticated, yet familiar and approachable, as any community website should be.

In addition to the site, we would like an HTML designed email form, in the theme of the site, which we will use to communicate with borrowers and lenders.

The target audiences are current university students and alumni. Both will approach with caution, so the site needs to communicate in a clear way exactly what we do, and how we do it. The site should make people feel special about being part of their community, and excited to leverage their affiliation with the community in this new way.

We are open to various designs. Please don't use the logo that we have on our current site, as we aren't planning to keep it.

The key is that the site be sophisticated, attractive, and approachable. It must convey both warmth and familiarity of an alumni community (logos? college-related themed photos?) and the professional integrity of a financial entity. I realize these are difficult to convey at once.

The minimum requirements of the site in terms of functionality are similar to what you can see on our current site. Firstly, the entire process needs to be explained clearly. Secondly, borrowers need to register on the lending platform that we have partnered with, and then come back to let us know the location of their request. We believe they will come back because that is how they will ensure that their alumni will find out about the request. Thirdly, the site needs to register lenders on our site, and then direct the lenders to the lending platform, where they will register their bank account and transfer funds into their account.

Currently both registration forms are in jot form. As borrowers register, we send emails to the lenders notifying them of the new request. If this database could be centralized in Wordpress, that would be great, but we don't know enough about what Wordpress offers.

Please don't use the current logo on our site. We aren't keeping it.

Friends, we love sites that have one large high res image in the background, can we see some like that? Maybe of a college green, or something else with nice detail? Just one direction you can take this project...