John Winstanley, Fort Safety (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 549)
Inspired by personal experience, John Winstanley, Founder and CEO of Fort Safety, founded a nonprofit to assist families with internet safety for their children. He spoke with North Fulton Business Radio host John Ray about the three C’s of internet safety, his passion for this work, the kinds of problems present online, how the Fort Safety system works, partnering with groups and brands, and much more.
North Fulton Business Radio is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.
Fort Safety
Fort Safety provides families and communities with practical instruction and preventative measures to address the daily challenges of internet safety, online harassment, and technology-born addictions. 
Fort Safety shines the light of awareness and hope on to what we do, see, and feel while online.
Fort Safety strives to provide every parent and caregiver in America the knowledge and power to protect their kids from online threats.
Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook
John Winstanley, Founder and CEO, Fort Safety
Inspired by the courageous life of his daughter Laura Gwen and motivated by the frustration of seeing children of all ages fall victim to online toxicity, John Winstanley founded FortSafety in 2013, in Monroe, Georgia. With the support of his wife and family, John left his career as an engineer behind to start a nonprofit focused on protecting kids and strengthening families.
Featured in multiple publications, podcasts, radio, and TV shows and awarded commendations for their outstanding public service, John and the Fort safety aims to make internet use safe for children and empower their families to make healthy decisions for their internet use. John’s unique style of presentation uses stories of his own struggles with depression, self-esteem, and a technology-born addiction to teach his audiences how to create an internet safety plan, protect and empower kids to deal with bullying, or care for a child that has been exposed to harmful content by accident, for example.
Questions and Topics in the Interview:
- How did Fort Safety get started?
- Where are you from?
- Should parents throw their internet devices in the trash…why not?
- What are the 3 c’s of internet safety?
- What is your mission, your guiding light?
- What do you want parents/educators to know about internet safety and their kids?
- How can parents, schools, churches, or businesses get involved with FortSafety?
North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.
Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.
Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked-from-scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.
