As sport and exercise become a bigger part of people’s lives, there are more opportunities for corporations and businesses to get involved via their corporate social responsibility programmes, to the point where CSR is becoming another sector of the sports industry

With so much focus on the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Olympic and Paralympic sports, the UK’s powerful network of sports governing bodies and voluntary sports clubs, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this represents pretty much the full extent of meaningful sporting activity in the UK.

But largely below the radar, sport is finding its way – via CSR programmes – into other parts of society to the benefit of all.

In this issue, we kick off a new occasional series looking at organisations which offer sporting opportunities to the public outside of the conventional channels.

We start with an organisation that has 25,000 members – 3,000 of which are taking part in weekly running clubs all over the country. This organisation has set itself the aim of engaging up to 50,000 people in the next few years – yet it has no allegiance to any sports governing body and receives no government subsidies. A secret society? A breakaway group of some kind? No – it’s a running-focused sport retailer called Sweatshop (page 36).

The company was established by London Marathon-founder Chris Brasher in 1971 and now runs free-of-charge Sweatshop Running Communities across the UK for its customers.

Sweatshop only launched its Running Communities in 2011, but there are already 120 in operation, with significant engagement from members. Sweatshop MD Nick Pearson told Sports Management: “The groups are for everyone and whereas at running clubs, members come together to meet the goals of the organisation – winning a race, or doing well in the league, for example – in a Sweatshop Running Community, people come together to pursue their own individual goals.”

Runners are under the supervision of running leaders. These are Sweatshop store staff members who take a UK Athletics course which has been specially designed for the company. Members build up their proficiency via a programme designed to help people with no running ability move towards being able to run continuously, at their own pace, for five kilometres.

Sweatshop values fitting – and not just for shoes – so staff are also trained to fit sports bras and attend a course in bra-fitting and breast health at the University of Bedfordshire. In addition, Sweatshop is working with Portsmouth University on a research project on breast health and how sports bras can stop teenage girls giving up running. Although sports bras may seem a minor matter when compared with the huge challenge and cost of providing facilities and sports infrastructure, their advent has been transformational in getting women and girls into sport, and it’s heartening to see that more mainstream bra manufacturers are now moving into the sports bra market too.

Initiatives like Sweatshop’s Running Communities must be embraced and supported, encouraged and studied for best practice. They’re not political and they’re a good model for creating robust, effective, much-needed opportunities for people to take part in sport in the community. We applaud Sweatshop for establishing them as a win:win for both the company and its customers.

This is the most effective type of CSR and as Nick Pearson says, doing anything less “would appear to be corporate BS”.

Liz Terry, editor, twitter: @elizterry email: [email protected]