Building an inclusive cycling “movement”: Exploring the charity-led mobilisation of recreational cycling in communities across Merseyside, England

Highlights

•	We extend resource mobilisation theory to conceptualise the ‘movement for movement organisation’.
•	Resources are accrued via self-production, co-optation, aggregation and patronage.
•	Funding from patrons is driven by value congruence and mutual objectives.
•	Participant engagement confers organisational legitimacy and is used to leverage external resources.
•	As a fundamental resource, participants can be converted into delivery agents.

Abstract

In this article, the authors examined the charity-led implementation of an inclusive cycling programme across Merseyside in the North West of England. The project itself is delivered via a network of cycling 'hubs' that the charity has set up and run typically in deprived communities. Using resource mobilisation theory, the authors specifically examined how the Cycling Projects charity mobilises a raft of diverse resources from the financial to the human, and from the cultural to the physical, to drive and sustain its Pedal Away product. To do this, the authors utilise qualitative data captured from 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews undertaken with stakeholders both internal and external to the charity, as well as focus group data yielded from programme participants (n = 32). The findings illustrate how the charity is able to garner and exchange resources from its partners and funders, and the ways in which it mobilises both participants and personnel from within the communities it serves. As an original contribution to the sport management field, the authors demonstrate both the value and applicability of resource mobilisation theory as a theoretical framework by which to understand how a non-profit organisation derives the resources it requires in order to deliver a network of community embedded recreational cycling programmes.

Keywords:

• Resource mobilisation theory
• Non-profit organisation
• Inclusive cycling
• Volunteers
• Social movement
• Organisational legitimacy

Notes

1 As a charitable organisation, Cycling Projects is a non-profit organisation that operates within the ‘third’ or non-profit sector.

2 Cycling Projects class ‘regular’ attenders as those who have attended two or more sessions in the past quarter.

3 The executive body that oversees public transport for the Liverpool City Region.