Rayne said the sports clubs were the “dominant force”, while charitable organisations often suffered a “gratefulness syndrome”.
“The not-for-profit is just so happy to be partnering with the sports team that it’s kind of the situation where the sports team says ‘jump’ and the not-for-profit will say, ‘how high?’,” he said.
“This means it’s generally the not-for-profit that is doing most of the work for outreach activities under the banner of a partnership.”
Formality waned even in those first stages of the partnership, Rayne said.
“Only one partnership had progressed well following the MoU stage to a more strategic arrangement, consisting of much stronger processes compared to the other NPOs interviewed,” he said.
“Nine of the 11 partnerships analysed quickly deteriorated into ad hoc, poorly executed activities.
“We want to use our findings to help both professional sports organisations and not-for-profits to maximise outcomes from these partnerships, including donations, the recruitment of volunteers and awareness raising through favourable word-of-mouth.”
Evidence suggested that most sports organisations are in these partnerships beyond self-interest, Rayne said.
“Sports teams are community organisations – so I would argue that they don’t do it just to get more memberships, they do it because their entire existence is about involving themselves in their communities,” he said.
“A partnership that works well, for example, is between the Richmond Football Club and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, which has been developed over a long period of time and really comes across as genuine.
“Carlton and Geelong are examples of clubs which have taken a more deliberate approach to their partnerships with not-for-profits in recent years too.”
Rayne said sports teams that had too many partnerships ran the risk of leading to poor outcomes.
“In some sports, there are professional clubs that have up to 12 charitable partners. That’s where it can become a bit convoluted, as fans often get confused by these partnerships,” he said.
“Sports teams and not-for-profits overseas could benefit from the findings of this research, where a more strategic approach is advocated.”
As a follow up to this study, Rayne and his colleagues at RMIT are investigating sports fans’ confusion with social-cause messaging in the English Premier League.
“Understanding approaches to social partnerships – investigation target audience reactions and non-profit managers’ business practice: a mixed-methods study” is published in the Journal of Marketing Management (DOI: 10.1080/0267257X.2023.2247418).
Story: Will Wright
