It's Really Not About the Bike: Exploring Attraction and Attachment to the Events of the Lance Armstrong Foundation

Participatory sport events have emerged as viable fundraising mechanisms for charitable organizations. This article examines the impact that motives for charitable giving and sport event participation have on charity sport events. The authors examine the factors that attract participants to a charity sport event, while the role of charity in fostering attachment to the event is explored. Focus groups were conducted with charity sport event participants to discuss what motivated their participation. Results revealed that intellectual, social, and competency motives along with the motives of reciprocity, self-esteem, need to help others, and desire to improve the charity contribute to attraction. In addition, the results suggest that the charitable component influences social and competency motives and contributes to the development of attachment to the event. The authors recommend event managers work to foster and leverage the sense of community created through these events.

[1]  Laurence Chalip,et al.  Towards Social Leverage of Sport Events , 2006 .

[2]  A. Langley,et al.  The Dynamics of Collective Leadership and Strategic Change in Pluralistic Organizations , 2001 .

[3]  Aaron C. T. Smith,et al.  Sport consumer typologies : a critical review , 2003 .

[4]  B. Green.  Leveraging Subculture and Identity to Promote Sport Events , 2001 .

[5]  Rita Kottasz.  How should charitable organisations motivate young professionals to give philanthropically , 2004 .

[6]  An All-Consuming Cause: Breast Cancer, Corporate Philanthropy, and the Market for Generosity , 2001 .

[7]  D. Morgan.  Successful Focus Groups: Advancing the State of the Art , 1993 .

[8]  Daniel C. Funk,et al.  Consumer loyalty: the meaning of attachment in the development of sport team allegiance. , 2006 .

[9]  E. Staurowsky,et al.  Developing an instrument to measure athletic donor behavior and motivation. , 1996 .

[10]  G. M. Johnson,et al.  Understanding Communication Processes in Focus Groups , 1993 .

[11]  J. Marx.  Women and human services giving. , 2000, Social work.

[12]  S. Hibbert,et al.  Giving to charity: questioning the donor decision process , 1996 .

[13]  Donald N. Ritzenhein.  One more time: How do you motivate donors? , 2000 .

[14]  Daniel C. Funk,et al.  The Psychological Continuum Model: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding an Individual's Psychological Connection to Sport , 2001 .

[15]  D. Getz.  Festivals, special events, and tourism , 1990 .

[16]  Daniel F. Mahony,et al.  Toward a Better Understanding of College Athletic Donors: What Are the Primary Motives? , 2005 .

[17]  K. Armstrong,et al.  An exploratory examination of attributes influencing students' decisions to attend college sport events. , 2004 .

[18]  J. Crompton.  Motivations for pleasure vacation , 1979 .

[19]  T. Lam,et al.  An analysis of Mainland Chinese visitors’ motivations to visit Hong Kong , 1999 .

[20]  Beatriz García,et al.  Enhancing Sport Marketing through Cultural and Arts Programs: Lessons from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festivals , 2001 .

[21]  J. G. Beard,et al.  Measuring Leisure Motivation , 1983 .

[22]  L. Chalip,et al.  Sport tourism as the celebration of subculture , 1998 .

[23]  Kirk L. Wakefield,et al.  Factors leading to group identification: A field study of winners and losers , 1998 .

[24]  C. Belfield,et al.  What Determines Alumni Generosity? Evidence for the UK , 2000 .

[25]  Adrian. Sargeant,et al.  Charitable Giving: Towards a Model of Donor Behaviour , 1999 .

[26]  J. Crompton,et al.  Motives of visitors attending festival events. , 1997 .

[27]  An analysis of leisure constraints based on different recreational sport participation levels: Results from a study in Greece , 1997 .

[28]  Bonnie S. Guy,et al.  THE MARKETING OF ALTRUISTIC CAUSES: UNDERSTANDING WHY PEOPLE HELP , 1988 .

[29]  A. Maslow.  Motivation and Personality , 1954 .

[30]  Daniel C. Funk,et al.  An Evaluation of Theoretical Frameworks for Studying Physically Active Leisure , 2008 .

[31]  N. Denzin,et al.  Handbook of Qualitative Research , 1994 .

[32]  S. Shaw,et al.  Mothers and Daughters: Teaching and Learning about Leisure , 2008 .

[33]  Peggy Yuhas Byers,et al.  Focus Groups: A Qualitative Opportunity for Researchers , 1991 .

[34]  C. Hyatt.  Qualitative Methods in Sport Studies , 2007 .

[35]  Sled Dog Racing: The Celebration of Co-operation in a Competitive Sport , 1999 .

[36]  Orley M. AmosJr.  Empirical analysis of motives underlying individual contributions to charity , 1982 .

[37]  S. Iso-Ahola,et al.  Psychological nature of leisure and tourism experience , 1987 .

[38]  Matthew D. Shank,et al.  Fan or Fanatic: Refining a Measure of Sports Involvement , 1998 .

[39]  Dale Fodness.  Measuring tourist motivation. , 1994 .

[40]  S. Iso-Ahola,et al.  Toward a social psychological theory of tourism motivation: A rejoinder , 1982 .

[41]  Daniel C. Funk,et al.  The Development of a Generic Tourism Benefits Scale , 2006 .

[42]  Jo-Ellen Asbury,et al.  Overview of Focus Group Research , 1995 .

[43]  S. Iso-Ahola,et al.  The Social Psychology of Leisure and Recreation , 1980 .

[44]  Yoo-shik Yoon,et al.  Involvement and travel for recreational runners in North Carolina. , 2003 .

[45]  S. Wilkinson.  Focus groups in feminist research , 1998 .

[46]  H. Zhang,et al.  An analysis of tourism policy development in modern China , 1999 .

[47]  Daniel C. Funk,et al.  The Fan Attitude Network (FAN) Model: Exploring Attitude Formation and Change among Sport Consumers , 2004 .

[48]  S Dawson,et al.  Four motivations for charitable giving: implications for marketing strategy to attract monetary donations for medical research. , 1988, Journal of health care marketing.