PR agency helps local charities engage audiences

Oxford based Fortitude Communications is lending a helping hand to three well-deserving good causes via the delivery of digital content. 

Fortitude selected Autism Family Support Oxfordshire for the first prize, the production of a video. The Worminghall based charity provides therapeutic education for autistic children and young people and services to ensure they, along with their families, are happy, healthy and able to thrive. 

Jacari, an award-winning charity that provides free language tutoring to migrant, asylum seeking and refugee children in Oxford who have English as an additional language, scooped a professional photo-shoot. While Oxfordshire Crossroads, a provider of home care services in the county was awarded media relations support to help raise its profile. 

Congratulations

Greig Box Turnbull, founder of Fortitude Communications, said: ​“Congratulations to the three charities who were selected and to everyone who entered. The response we received was incredible and it was a challenging process picking the overall winners from so many compelling charities and submissions. It was a tight call, but we felt the final three stood out. 

“Autism Family Support Oxfordshire submitted a very thoughtful entry and our team were really impressed by the scale of the work it delivers in our community and the difference it makes. A video will help the charity with on-going fundraising and brand awareness. 

“Language is crucial to what we do at Fortitude and so we felt a strong affinity for Jacari and we look forward to supporting them via a photo shoot. The positive impact Oxfordshire Crossroads delivers also struck us and we are pleased to be helping them via media relations. I’m grateful to my colleagues for getting behind our giving back programme and enabling us to help more charities for another year.” 

Profile raising

Gita Lobo, CEO, Autism Family Support Oxfordshire said: ​“This is wonderful news for our charity and we’re absolutely delighted to be the winner of the first prize and look forward to working with Fortitude. The demand for our work continues to grow year-on-year as we are well known within the local autism community – but we are less known in the wider community. The film will raise our profile and help us to engage with new supporters and funders. It will feature our young people and promote the impact of our work, so we also hope it will inspire similar young people and families.”

Natasha Wooldridge, Jacari Fundraising and Supporter Engagement Officer, said: ​“Our team at Jacari is so pleased to be selected as the winner of Fortitude’s charity giving back competition. We’re excited to have the opportunity to get their support improving our digital communications by getting some new, professional photographs which we can use on our website. As a small charity, we don’t have in-house marketing support, so it is fantastic to be chosen by Fortitude and we look forward to working with them.”

Lizzy Clarkson, Deputy CEO of Oxfordshire Crossroads, said: ​“It is lovely for a local business to give back in this way to local charities and we’re really pleased to be chosen. We have been helping unpaid carers locally for 40 years and this will help us celebrate. As a charity, we are so busy delivering support to unpaid carers that we don’t have the expertise to properly market our work. A big thank you to Fortitude for stepping in where our skills are lacking. We hope that with Fortitude’s help we will be able to reach more unpaid carers and people with care needs across the county. So many put the needs of others before their own and don’t know we are here to support them.” 

Fortitude will cover the time, expertise and equipment required to produce the video, photos and content. The team will hold a workshop with the winning charities to understand their culture and target audience to ensure the messaging and final output is effective. 

The agency specialises in helping organisations engage audiences via communications, content, PR, video, photography, and drone services. It was founded in 2017 by former Oxford United managing director and Mirror journalist Mr Box Turnbull.