USING A SPORT EVENT TO CREATE A SENSE OF COMMUNITY: CHARITY SPORT EVENT MANAGER PERSPECTIVES

Charity sport events not only involve completing the activity, but also the opportunity to bring people together. A variety of research has examined charity sport events' capacity to foster a sense of community from the participant point of view. The current research examines sense of community within charity sport events from the event management perspective and advances the following research question: What do charity sport event managers feel they have put in place to create sense of community among participants? To address this research question, qualitative data were collected via interviews with 15 charity sport event managers in Japan. An interview guide comprised of six demographic questions, along with nine questions based upon the sense of community in sport framework was utilized. Five themes were identified within the interviews: charitable contribution, soliciting feedback from participants, interactive event environment, supplementary activities, and lack of competition. Two themes from the sense of community in sport framework that did not emerge across the interviews underscore opportunity for event managers to leverage mobile applications and online discussion forums to engage participant's shared interest in sport, as well as enlist leaders among event participants to serve as advocates. Based on the current results, future research can include managers from the designated charities aligned with events to assess whether the sense of community created within these events leads to long-term benefits for the organization.