Fredericks Foundation has a team of two to row across the Atlantic as part of “The World’s Toughest Row” in December 2026
Fredericks is purchasing The Entrepreneur Ship – a purpose-built ocean rowing boat to participate in the World’s Toughest Row
We are planning three Atlantic rows in 2026, 2027 and 2028. We have our crew in place for 2026 and will be recruiting crews for 2027 and 2028
We are providing a host of opportunities for companies and individuals to be associated with this amazing endeavour – we would love you to support us on this incredible journey!
Who are Fredericks Foundation?
Founded in 2001, Fredericks has created or helped support nearly 1,000 businesses led by disadvantaged individuals who have had to overcome major hurdles to growing their businesses
Following a strategic review in 2019, our primary focus now is to support extraordinary social enterprises to scale.
We are resourced almost wholly by volunteers, so funds go direct to our causes, not to pay administration or marketing costs.
We are a bold, fast-moving investor, not frightened of taking calculated risks. Each opportunity is thoroughly analysed and researched by our experienced team of volunteer business experts who have worked at senior levels across a variety of business models.
Why are we doing this?
We have been looking for an opportunity to raise significant additional funds so we can help more deserving social enterprises.
We feel it’s important that any opportunity we are involved in also helps us to communicate our story to a wider audience and reflects Fredericks’ own values.
As a result we have jumped at the opportunity to associate ourselves with one of the world’s great endurance challenges – The World’s Toughest Row.
We also believe this is a perfect match for us as it creates numerous opportunities for our partners to generate positive exposure for their organisations while supporting us in bringing more social enterprises to scale up and prosperity.
What is the World’s Toughest Row?
The Atlantic version of The World’s Toughest Row (WTR) is an annual race from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to Antigua – a journey of over 3,000 miles.
The event attracts teams from all over the world, taking from 40-90 days to complete this very demanding journey in extremely challenging circumstances
For the 2026 event we have recruited our wonderful crew, Charlie Pendarves and Patrick (Paddy) Thomas. They are fully registered for the event and you can read about them and their story on the WTR website – www.worldstoughestrow.com
As well as preparing for the challenge itself they will be actively involved in fundraising and are keen to engage with our sponsors, keeping us all up to date with their progress starting with the many grueling hours of training through to the race itself.
Why might you want to be involved?
We are offering a variety of different sponsorship packages covering one to three year engagements with some or all of the following benefits
- Association of your brand with one of the great endurance challenges on the planet – see Supplement 1 for key media facts from the 2025 race
- An opportunity to involve both your customers and your colleagues in inspirational engagement events on the boat’s departure from La Gomera and arrival in Antigua
- Fundraising events and regular updates will provide relationship building opportunities with clients and customers
- Build links with a highly effective charity, Fredericks Foundation who are helping achieve a fairer society through investing in scaling up extraordinary social initiatives such as The Clink, and Carefree – see Supplement 2 for more details on theirs and others stories
We believe our flexible approach to sponsorship packages, provides a great balance of benefits in exchange for the investment we ask you to support us with.
Sponsorship packages
Join The Entrepreneur Ship team by supporting this endeavour and receive a range of benefits for your organisation and colleagues
*Bespoke options available for multi-year commitments
Crew support packages
There are also a range of ways in which companies and individuals can support specific but essential elements of the row.
These include helping the crew and their equipment get to the start line, providing the safety equipment required to keep the crews safe and well-fed during their journey to sponsoring the oars that will make over one million strokes over the 3,000 mile journey
Contact: Paul@fredericksfoundation.org for more information. We look forward to welcoming you aboard one of the world’s great adventures.
Interested in joining the row?
The team for December 2026 has been selected, however if you are interested in applying for 2027 please contact Paul Barry-Walsh paul@fredericksfoundation.org or Janette Hill janette@fredericksfoundation.org
You can also read more on the World’s Toughest Row website. If you decide it is not for you, do please share this web page with your friends and colleagues!
Supplement 1
Here are some media statistics from the 2019/20 race:
- 50+ accredited media teams
- TV coverage
- 60+ global broadcasts
- Over 42m viewers
- Press coverage
- 732 articles
- 884m readers reached
- Digital media
- 3600+ estimated total posts
- 150m+ estimated potential reach
- Race website and race tracker
- Over 3.5m views
As part of the above, there was significant activity on Facebook, Facebook Livestream, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, with over 21m people engaged.
Supplement 2: Who does Fredericks help?
Fredericks helps small Social Enterprises to scale. Typically they:
- Are female led with inspirational leadership.
- Have an innovative solution to a societal problem that isn’t being addressed by other agencies
- Are capable of significant growth and extensive impact
- Have a proven trading model and are beyond pilot stage
- Can achieve financial sustainability in the next 18 months.
Examples of recently funded Social Enterprises
The Clink provides training and support into employment for people in and leaving prison – through their prison kitchens and successful restaurants. In response to growing demand for their event catering business, they recently invested in new kitchens outside prison grounds.
This has enabled them to expand their impact both by extending support and employment opportunities to ex-offenders and young people at risk of offending; and by increasing profits available to help fund its charitable operations. The Clink trains around 800 people per year and awards over 550 qualifications.
A software house, set up as a Cooperative, using extended reality to develop innovative solutions to health and wellbeing challenges – including dementia, stroke recovery, bipolar disorder.
They were recently one of 5 organisations worldwide awarded £300,000 from the Longitude Prize on Dementia to help fund their groundbreaking work to develop smart glasses deploying AI which assist sufferers by helping them to recognise objects and providing instruction – and thereby remain independent for longer.
Carefree – Change Happens Overnight
There are four million people in the UK who are full time unpaid carers and 68 % have not had a break for more than a year. Without them our care system would collapse – they provide 80% of all homecare in the UK and save the public purse £162 billion per annum (equivalent to the entire NHS budget).
Carefree matches surplus hotel rooms with carers to provide respite and holidays. Following their break, 84% of carers say they are better able to cope with their caring role.
To date Carefree has delivered over 12,500 breaks representing £3.5m of donated hotel stays and has significant potential to scale.
Lightning Reach is a financial support portal which seamlessly connects people in financial hardship to the support they need, quickly and securely.
Lightning Reach simplifies access across the complex ecosystem of grants, benefits, help with household bills and other vital resources for individuals and families in need. It can be used by funders such as charities and local councils to streamline their administration processes, and by responsible organisations (e.g. banks, utilities, housing providers) seeking to support vulnerable clients.
To date Lightning Reach has facilitated over £17m of support with over 160,000 users registered on their portal.
United Repair Centre is on a mission to repair the clothing industry. Through offering high-quality repair services it works with leading clothing brands (including sports and outdoor brands) to help address the textile waste crisis – the second most polluting industry globally – and tackle social exclusion.
URC provides employment opportunities to newcomers, young adults and other job seekers distanced from the labour market. Established in the Netherlands, with Patagonia as a founding partner, URC is now expanding operations into the UK and is working with brands such as Lululemon and Rapha and has partnered with London based social enterprise, Fashion Enter.
Juno is developing a network of high quality local homes where children feel safe, supported and loved – transforming opportunities for children growing up in the care system. Far too many of the c85,000 “Children Looked After” in England have a poor experience within the current care system. Juno are working to address this problem by creating high-quality children’s residential homes that will allow children to stay close to their local area, their communities and schools.
Any profits Juno make are invested in new homes and in Early Help to reduce the need for children to be placed in residential care and to influence sector wide change by demonstrating a successful model that works for children, sharing learnings and collaborating with other organisations to develop and promote quality staff training. The potential for widespread impact by improving the outcomes for children growing up in the care system will have significant benefit for wider society and the public purse.