Samba events set out to achive the aim to plan, run and host a charity football tournament for local businesses within South Yorkshire with an aim of raising awareness of the Sheffield Mencap Charity. Striving to deliver three objectives
1.To raise awareness of the Sheffield Mencap charity and develop community relationships between the charity and local businesses within the surrounding South Yorkshire region.
Due to the government making drastic cuts to funding, charities are seeking new sources of income in the form of events and corporate sector funding. The Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam (2013) recent research has revealed that small to medium size local businesses are significantly important supporters for the charity sector and are great resources. However The Guardian (2014) identifies that corporate sector funding is exclusive to big 'brand' charities that are visible, emphasising the importance of raising awareness among the corporate sector. Raising awareness is especially essential for Sheffield Mencap due to charity being local and low budget, which means little marketing material is used, resulting in few businesses being aware of the charity. Events are becoming a fundamental element for charities in aspiration of creating awareness (NCVO, 2014). Getz (2010) discusses that events can be used as a powerful marketing tool in raising awareness that enables them to 'to block out the noise' of other charities so that potential donors are not only aware of the charity's existence, but are more willing to donate to their cause because when events are associated with charities (or visa versus) there is generally increased awareness and more importantly support. This is vital to Sheffield Mencap as they are seeking to gain competitive advantage (Saxon & Guild, 2010).
Events create platforms to communicate the charities messages and display the charities identity, values and ethics through careful event design (Berridge, 2012), and strengthen and build relationships with attendees through emotional engagement. An event that involves high participation levels by the attendees was been employed to engage with the attendees and create an emotional connection with the charity. Beard and Wilson (2006) reinforce this by advocating physical engagement or participation is imperative component to 'experiences' as they are vital to the process of creating memories and emotional connections. An emotional connection with the charity will encourage long term support. Highfield (2013) outlines the three ways of creating long lasting support:
1. Say a meaningful thank you.
2. Demonstrate the impact of a customer’s support using tangible examples.
3. Create an emotional connection to your cause so supporters want to recreate the feeling by interacting with the charity again.
The pre, during and post event was designed to create emotional connection with the charity.
Evaluation of The Objectives Against Event design and stakeholder surveys
MenCup