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.