Benefits and Motivations for Virtual Community Participation: A Netnography of the Hogwarts Running Club

Keeping up with technology today can be challenging. As park and recreation agencies increasingly find the need to adapt to and incorporate new technologies to stay relevant, the challenge to maintain membership and attract the ever-growing digital generation cannot be underestimated. Technology has long been considered a tool for agency administration, program registration, and implementation, but new forms of technological interaction should be considered by professionals as a way to reach existing and potential participants as well as a way to build community. The rapid development and growth of technology has spurred the development and popularity of virtual communities. Although these communities have been around for over 30 years, they have not yet been adopted into the professional “tool kit” for program delivery or in reaching out to foster stronger community connections and involvements. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of benefits and motivation among participants of a leisure-based virtual community. This study utilized the qualitative research technique netnography to explore the perceived benefits and motivations of members of the virtual community The Hogwarts Running Club (HRC). The community has the mission of changing the world through physical fitness and charitable giving and has attracted a large, active, and loyal membership. The HRC was an ideal study setting due to its popularity and the leisure-based nature of the community. The HRC virtual interactions included in the dataset took place via a Facebook group where the focus of discussion was on Harry Potter and running. Data analysis revealed three primary categories of perceived benefits and motivations among the Facebook posts collected over a six-month timeframe: improved physical health, improved mental health, and social and emotional support. Participants indicated that their participation in HRC community events and the support and encouragement they received led to these perceived benefits. As many park and recreation agencies have mandates and commitments to improve quality of life for their constituents, facilitating a leisure-based virtual community might be one avenue of doing so. As such, implications derived from the findings for theory and practice are discussed along with suggestions for future research and practice.

Understanding the Agency-Foundation Relationship: The Role of Nonprofit Foundations in Delivering Local Park and Recreation Services

Inadequate funding is a common and longstanding concern for local public park and recreation agencies. Traditionally, these services are funded predominantly through tax-based allocations, supplemented by other streams such as earned revenue, dedicated levies, and sponsorship agreements. Cost-cutting measures such as outsourcing, overall staffing reductions, and an increasing reliance on a parttime workforce have also become increasingly common in the context of local park and recreation service delivery. Partnership with nonprofit organizations represents another potential strategy to adequately fund local park and recreation services.Partnerships between local park and recreation agencies and nonprofit park and recreation foundations have a long history, and help support local park and recreation agencies in a variety of capacities. Their importance may also be growing as a function of the decline in tax-based support and earned revenue due to both the Great Recession and the global COVID-19 pandemic. Such partnerships are not unique to local parks and recreation however, and are common—and widely studied—at the national and transnational level. Despite their importance to local park and recreation service delivery, and the established body of knowledge examining these partnerships at the national and transnational level, the local agency-foundation relationship remains understudied. In this manuscript we begin to address this gap by providing a clearer picture of the agency-foundation relationship, and identifying strategies for how local park and recreation agencies can most effectively leverage these partnerships. To do so, we employ a qualitative research method, interviewing leaders from both local public park and recreation agencies and nonprofit park foundations. Results illustrate a variety of motivations for initiating an agency-foundation relationship (funding/capacity, deteriorating conditions, and equity), as well as a number of distinct benefits of such a partnership (increased operational capacity, advocacy and outreach, expertise, and non-governmental status). Respondents also identified various characteristics of a successful agency-foundation relationship (effective communication, clear roles and responsibilities, strong connections, and flexibility/responsiveness), and challenges to success (competition for scarce resources, and equity). Based on these results, we propose several strategies to help local park and recreation agencies maximize these partnerships (communicate frequently and with purpose, build relationships, formalize ties, and strive for equitable outcomes).