Fortitude announce charity competition winners

The giving back competition worth more than £5,000 will provide the winning charities with professional communications and content support. 

Play2Give, a volunteer run charity founded by brain injury survivor Andrew Baker MBE BCAv, scooped the first prize and will benefit from the production of a showcase video.

SeeSaw, a charity that provides grief support for children and young people in Oxfordshire, will receive a professional photoshoot. While Emmaus Oxford will receive a graphic design support package. 

The charity giving back competition is the centre-piece of Fortitude’s various activities across to support good causes as part of its community values. 

Over the moon 

Play2Give raises funds to help brain injury and children’s hospital charities. Andrew started the organisation in 2007 after having his life saved twice, once at birth after being born with a brain injury, and again aged 12 with brain surgery.

Andrew said: ​“We’re utterly over the moon to be selected as the winner of the first prize, it was totally unexpected but shows how the impact we make and the story behind the charity has touched the hearts of the team at Fortitude. 

“As a tiny charity run entirely by volunteers this will really help us further raise our profile, awareness and help us fund raise to enable us to transform more lives. We are so excited and can’t wait to work with Fortitude to spread the word even more about our work in such an engaging and visual way. We are immensely grateful.”

Make a difference 

SeeSaw provides support for more than 400 bereaved children annually in Oxfordshire and the help provided is determined by the needs of the individual child. The charity is celebrating its 25^th anniversary and the photoshoot will help it improve its digital communications and engagement. 

Liv Webster, Fundraising and Communications Officer at SeeSaw, said: ​“We’re so grateful to Fortitude for awarding us their charity photo shoot prize. 

“As a small charity this generous opportunity means a lot and is going to make a real difference in raising awareness of SeeSaw, sharing the impact of our work with bereaved children, young people and their families across Oxfordshire. We’re so excited to receive this prize and look forward to working with Fortitude. Thank you.”

Raising awareness

Emmaus Oxford helps people out of homelessness for good by providing crucial support and services. The graphic design package will help the charity communicate its impact to key audiences. 

Laura Bristow, Fundraising Manager at Emmaus Oxford, said: ​“Emmaus Oxford are delighted to be a winning charity in the Fortitude’s Charity Giving Back Competition. We are really looking forward to working with Fortitude to create some fantastic material to help promote our work across the county.”

Community values

Greig Box Turnbull, founder of Fortitude Communications, said: ​“We’re proud to be able to be able to give back and help three fantastic charities via professional communications support. 

“We were blown away by the response this year, with almost 30 charities entering. Every single charity’s purpose is compelling and it was a challenging process to select three winners from so many good causes. 

“It serves as a reminder that many people in our communities rely on the support and services of numerous charities and how important it is to give back and help where we can.

“One of our values is community and we’re looking forward to supporting the charities via this project as part of that ethos.”

Based on ARC Oxford in Cowley, Fortitude specialises in helping businesses communicate effectively via services including PR, content creation, photography, video, social media and marketing.