Richmond Football Club executive Simon Matthews reflects on the importance of community engagement at football clubs.

Some Richmond fans may remember a young supporter by the name of Nate Anderson, a Western Australian boy stricken with Leukemia. When we met Nate he was gravely ill. Jake King, his favourite player, flew to Perth and, following medical clearance, flew with him back to Melbourne to watch the Tigers play St Kilda. It was possibly the last time he would see the Tigers play.

The Tigers won. Nate, in his wheelchair, was in the circle as the players belted out the theme song. The players followed up with a cake and a rendition of happy birthday given it fell on the week of the match.

In uncertain times there was one certainty. Richmond Football Club had created a memory for Nate and his family that would endure for whatever time he had left.

Football clubs do these things because they can, and they should. At Richmond, we want to build a football club that stands for something beyond wins and losses. Premierships are always the priority, but what are we beyond that? We want our members and supporters to know their Club cares and for them to feel a sense of pride in that.

The Club’s approach to community support is far more complex than the above example but all of it aligns absolutely with our number one priority which is to win games of football and bring premierships back to Punt Road Oval.

Richmond has two main areas of community investment – supporting the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community through its work in the Korin Gamadji Institute (KGI) and our preferred charity partnership with the Alannah and Madeline Foundation (AMF).

The Club deliberately chose two key areas as our focus, preferring to develop programs of depth that would deliver genuine support, as opposed to being a mile wide and an inch deep. It gives us the best chance of making an authentic contribution which is absolutely critical. Community support is first and foremost about corporate responsibility, not public relations.

And none of the above is a nice-to-do, it’s a must do, and the reasons are three-fold. Firstly, we commit to community because we should. We hold a privileged position in that we can bring sets of eyeballs to issues that matter. We are not the experts, but we can become a vehicle, in partnership with experts, to support social change and if you can do that, you should.

Secondly, it makes absolute business sense. AFL Clubs live in a highly-regulated, homogenous environment. Salary caps, football caps, aggregated digital networks are among the many things that can create a sameness about clubs. Authentic community engagement is an important way to differentiate your brand and Richmond invests heavily. Increasingly our corporate partners are seeking to align with a purpose-driven organisation and that goes well beyond logos on jumpers and wins and losses.

Thirdly, we want to build a football club that our members and supporters feel good about. We want them to feel emotionally connected to their Club and the work we do to support their community. As Simon Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. It is why we see huge crowds at Dreamtime at the ‘G and more recently the Anzac Day eve game, cause-related games that really matter to people. It is why we sell hundreds of Alannah and Madeline Foundation (AMF) memberships with proceeds going to protect children from the devastating effects of violence and bullying. It is why hundreds of Dreamtime guernseys are sold, helping underpin the operations of our KGI.

Community programming helps build a trusted, authentic brand that attracts and retains commercial partners, government support, as well as members and supporters. This in turn underpins a robust business that provides the football department with all it needs to give it the best chance of being successful.

People and their communities are at the heart of any sporting club. Ultimately they provide clubs with their licence to operate, so in turn those communities must be a part of how we operate.

To finish where we started, many Richmond fans have asked what became of young Nate Anderson. Well, young Nate is still with us today. This incredibly resilient young man finishes the medical treatment that has defined almost all of his life on Monday, June 12 this year. And – despite being minus a leg – he is back at school and plays football with his mates every weekend. Now, doesn’t that make you feel good?