In order to be able to successfully put on a charity sports event one of the things a charity must consider is what is actually motivating their participants to take part. By looking at this it could help charities understand what is attracting a participant to an event, what can be done in order to support them and furthermore help them to design events that participants will want to engage with.

One of the main aspects of motivation that came up among academics was the sense of camaraderie that was created at these charity sports events or the social aspect often associated with them (Filo et al, 2014). Charity sports events more often than not can be seen to bring like-minded people together to support a cause they all feel passionate about. For example some events may see a lot of participants who have gone through a similar experience of a friend, family member, or even themselves having gone through an illness that the charity is trying to raise awareness and funds for. These events allow these people to gather together and share their experiences showing them they are not alone and allowing them to take part in an event with these people to raise awareness and money for a cause that is special to them.

By creating this sense of camaraderie at an event, charity event organisers will be able to encourage people to come back to some of their other events by showing they can give the event participants what they are looking for, that social aspect. One of the ways this could arguably be done is by creating training events in the lead up to the actual event. For example Cancer Research UK do a Boot Camp training for participants of some of their certain events which gets people who are taking part in the same event together and allow them to go through the gruelling training together and support each other.

Another motivation academics have agreed on that causes people to sign up to sports events is reciprocity (Dawson, 1988). Research has shown that many of the people that sign up to charity sports events are people who have been directly affected by the cause of the charity, i.e. the participant has had cancer in the past so takes part in a cancer research charity event. Similarly many participants will take part in these events in memory of a loved one who was maybe affected by the charities cause or who received support from the charity and the participant wants to return this support by raising funds by taking part in these sports events. In this case charities need to be ready to be able to support these participants as taking part in an event in memory of a loved one can often be an emotional but very fulfilling journey.

Bennett et al (2007) highlighted another key motive for taking part in charity sports events can relate to the sports event itself of the will to have a healthier lifestyle. He suggested that some participants may just want to have the opportunity to start a healthier lifestyle and see using this charity sports event as a motivator to get them started. Similar some participants may just be taking part because they simply enjoy the sport for example taking part in a marathon may just be something they enjoy or they are training for another bigger marathon. Although they may not have any direct connection to the charity it does open a door for the charity to begin to make connections with these participants by introducing them to the campaigns they run and highlighting where the money raised is going to go. By doing this they may end up with a long term supporter.

Similarly to this Andreoni (1990) highlighted that people may donate to charity, or arguably take part in a charity run sports event, for more selfish motivations. This was described as the feel good factor and it is argued that many people will donate or raise funds for a charity just to make themselves feel better about themselves. This is also sometimes referred to as the “warm glow” effect. Scharf (2014) however suggested that this can be a negative for charities because even though they are receiving donations or fundraising from these participants the chances of them actually engaging enough to work towards raising awareness of the charities causes is slim. This means that charities must work to create a relationship with these participants in order to engage them with the charities cause.

To conclude there are many different aspects that can be seen to motivate people to take part in charities sports events including the social aspect, reciprocity, the sport aspect or simply more selfish reasons. However in order to ensure long term support from these participants, charities must work on how they engage with these participants in order to ensure they are getting what they need out of the events and also what more the charity can do in order to connect the participant with the charity cause.

References

Andreoni, J. (1990) Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving. The Economic Journal, 100 (401) 464-477.

Bennett, R., Mousley, W., Kitchin, P. and  Ali-Choudhury, R. (2007) Motivations for participating in charity-affiliated sporting events. Journal of Customer Behaviour, 6 (2) 155-178.

Dawson, S. (1988) Four motivations for charitable giving: Implications for marketing strategy to attract monetary donations for medical research. Journal of Health Care Marketing, 8 (2) 31-37

Filo, K., Funk, D. and O’Brien, D. (2014) An empirical investigation of the role of camaraderie, cause, competency, and participation motives in the development of attachment to a charity sport event. Managing Leisure, 19, (4) 245-262.

Scharf, K. (2014) Impure prosocial motivation in charity provision: Warm-glow charities and implications for public funding. Journal of Public Economics, 114, 50-57.

The Charities Aid Foundation (2011) reported that after the global financial crisis in 2008, a sharp drop was seen in the amount of money that was being donated to charity organisations by individuals. Due to this charities have had to start thinking about new and creative ways in order to raise vital funds that they need and the way they have solved this is through charity sports events. This is especially important to charities like the NSPCC who receive little to no state fundingfrom the government and so rely entirely on donations, fundraising and volunteers in order to run their campaigns and services (NSPCC, 2012).

The question however is why are these sports events working so well?

This is a question that has been hotly debated by many academics all with various outcomes. One of the key reasons however, that comes up time and time again is the idea of the growing popularity of recreational sport (Filo et al, 2011). This is especially in the light of the very successful London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics which have arguably motivated many people to go and join a sport and encouraged them to stick at it. This added with the fact that not only do charity sports events allow participants to take part in a healthy, active lifestyle but also allow them to raise money and support a cause that they may feel particularly passionate about gives them even more reason to partake.

Woolf et al (2013) argued that one of the negatives of charity sports events is that it is arguably only a one of financial boost for the charity because participants only engage with the charity and the event on a one off basis. Furthermore they highlighted the lack of evidence about whether these events have a long term impact on the charity in relation to volunteers and generating regular donations. However this is something Hendricks and Peelen (2013) very much disagree with as they argue that in fact these charity sports events attract an audience and then create an event that facilitates for long term support by creating a relationship with participants. This then in turn develops a future participant base for events that may be held in the future, raising more funds and allowing for the charity to grow even more. Woods et al (2010) also very much disagreed with Woolf et al (2013) idea on event participation being a one off basis. They highlighted that one of the positives of using sports events was the fact that many of them could be held annually giving somewhat of a steady source of revenue into the charity every year.

Another common reason that come up as to why charities used sports events, especially the tougher ones that would require a lot of training like marathons, was in regards to the relation between the difficulty and struggle of participants training for these events and the struggle that was often faced by the people that the charities are supporting. Bunds et al (2006) suggested by doing this charities were getting participants to connect with the cause that the charity is supporting and connecting them with the people who were going to benefit the most from the money raised. The idea is that when the individual is physically exerting themselves during the event they would be thinking about the struggles of the person they are trying to help for example if they were going through cancer etc. This in turn would also help to motivate them to carry on and work through the tough bits.

Recent research has shown that the size of the charity sector in the UK has massively increased over the years making it equivalent in its size and significance to that of agriculture and privatised utilities (Taylor and Shanka, 2008). This means that there is even more competition out there in order to appeal to people enough to get them to donate or fundraise money for a specific charity. In order to compete in such a high demand and ever growing market charities have had to come up with unique and captivating ways in order to secure donors and fundraisers. One of the reasons they are arguably choosing sports events in order to do this is due to the fun and relaxed nature that can often be associated with them especially with the likes of the fun runs and colour runs. This allows participants to take part in a fun event that is good for them and they’re going to enjoy while allowing them to raise vital funds for charities.

To conclude, one of the main reasons sports events have become so popular for charities to use is because of how popular sports in general have become. This has especially been seen off the back of the recent Olympics games that have inspired people to go out and take part in sports and charities are giving participants a platform to do this that also allows them to raise money for vital causes.

References
Bunds, K., Brandon-Lai, S. and Armstrong, C. (2016) An inductive investigation of participants’ attachment to charity sports events: the case of team water charity. European Sport Management Quarterly, 16 (3) 364-383

Charities Aid Foundation (2011) World giving index 2011: A global view of giving trends. Viewed 12^th December 2016, from https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/about-us-publications/world_giving_index_2011_191211.pdf

Filo, K., Funk, D. and O’Brien, D. (2011) Examining Motivation for Charity Sport Event Participation: A Comparison of Recreation-Based and Charity-Based Motives. Journal of Leisure Research, 43 (4) 491-518.

Hendricks, M. and Peelen, E. (2013) Personas in action: linking event participation motivation to charitable giving and sports. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 18 (1) 60-72.

NSPCC (2012) Annual Report 2011/2012. Viewed 12^th December 2016, from https://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/annual-reports/nspcc-annual-report-2012.pdf

Taylor, R. and Shanka, T. (2008) Cause for event: not-for-profit marketing through participant sports events. Journal of Marketing Management, 24 (9-10) 945-958.

Wood, L., Snelgrove, R. and Danylchuk, K. (2010) Segmenting Volunteer Fundraisers at a Charity Sport Event. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 22 (1) 38-54.

Woolf, J., Heere, B. and Walker, M. (2013) Do Charity Sport Events Function as “Brandfests” in the Development of Brand Community? Journal of Sport Management, 27, 95-107.