Leaving a legacy: Beth’s Hope Project

What does it really look like when marketing gives back? As a senior entering her final semester of college and soon to be entering full time work, I am considering this question more than ever before. We are all accustomed to the importance of the triple bottom line, where business focuses on people, planet, and policy in communion. But what does this really look like and how can I, personally, impact this?

I have served the Temple American Marketing Association as the Social Impact Director for the past two years, accumulating vital leadership, communication, and project management skills. In years past we have looked to the local Philadelphia community - which for me and many other students, becomes a second home - to see where we can help. In 2025, we sought out something a little bit different. We wanted to extend our resources, particularly in marketing, while looking inward. We asked, 'How can we help our neighbors at (our Temple) home'? In answer, Beth's Hope seeks to help one of our very own marketing professors by finding his daughter, Beth, a life-saving living kidney donor.

Elizabeth "Beth" Todd is the daughter of professor Dennis Paris, who has taught a breadth of undergraduate and graduate marketing, international business, and executive education courses at Temple University for the past 12 years. Beth is also a wife, mother to a special needs son, and an animal lover who puts her passion into practice while working full time in the veterinary health space. Her friends and family are quick to highlight her relentless joy and caring for others, her strength in the face of hardship that goes unseen to the typical eye. Beth is in kidney failure, with just 14% function in one remaining kidney. She was diagnosed with rare kidney disease as a child, which worsened through pre-eclampsia during and after pregnancy. Today, Beth works daily to balance her health struggles while soaking in all of life's moments with her family. It often involves waking up in the early morning hours with sickness, balancing multiple medications, and most recently being educated on and facing the need for dialysis.

Beth's Hope is a year-long initiative taken on by TU-AMA to help Beth find a living kidney donor before going on dialysis, which would even more drastically degrade her lifestyle.

Beth's Hope is a joint effort led by TU-AMA's Social Impact and Cherry Consulting Committees. We took Beth on as a "Cherry Client" for the fall semester, engaging in meetings every Wednesday where general body members work to develop creative and strategic marketing materials for local Philadelphia businesses and causes, including Beth. The Beth's Hope team is led by undergraduate Project Leads, Amaya Blount (Marketing '28) and Alejandro Vega (Business Management '29), who lead a group of over 10+ student consultants in all things marketing. So far, the team has created a content calendar and strategy to be implemented across Linkedin, a new Beth's Hope Instagram page, completed outreach to campus partners and alumni associations, and filmed a campaign video featuring Beth and her family. With a little over two-thirds of the semester passed, the success Beth's Hope has already achieved is proof of the power of marketing.

One Linkedin graphic, has received over 12,500 impressions in a week, being posted across TU-AMA, Fox School of Business Alumni Association, and Dennis Paris' pages and reposted by even more. These impressions were converted to engagement with Beth's story and action to become a donor. Beth's Donor Registry grew from less than 10 visits to over 100 visits. We have already had one person reach out interested in starting the screening process to be a potential donor adding to one blood match which has been invited for a full day hospital screening to streamline the matching process.

Beth's Hope touched the hearts of other marketers as well. Thanks to the support of our efforts, an alumnus of the Wharton School who runs an advertising agency with access to 80 digital billboards, reached out to cover the cost, creative, and placement of Beth's Hope and her registry across Pennsylvania and the New Jersey Turnpike.

The Beth's Hope Instagram page continues to grow in followers and reposts, being a hub of information for people to connect with Beth in a personal way. Students helped to create cohesive branding and a content strategy tailored to engage Instagram's younger student audience.

Beth's Hope is the subject of TU-AMAs annual social impact video, which will be judged by AMA's International Collegiate Council with the potential to be shown at the International Collegiate Conference (ICC) in Chicago next March.

Now, the Beth's Hope team is writing plans to talk to legislators in PA and DC to gain their public support of our campaign and spread Beth's Hope across the eastern region.

Beth's Hope has already gained inspirational success as a student-led marketing consultancy project, providing students with the measurable value of their work from the start and engaging them in an agile campaign that mimics the experience of real-world marketing teams. However, we still have a ways to go. Beth's Hope comes in two phases. The first and current phase being "Beth's Hope for survival"; looking for a kidney to save Beth's life continues to be our core mission. Following the achievement of this goal, we will reach phase two, "Beth's Hope for others", which seeks to be an awareness foundation for others with similar diagnoses and experiences as Beth. We hope to create a broader awareness campaign to improve systems of kidney donation and advocacy that untortunately can be so slow, and the bureaucratic process that creates a challenge for pre-emptive, life-saving solutions. Beth's Hope is more than a school project, it is a marketing campaign that teaches, inspires, and activates the Temple community and beyond. As for me, Beth's Hope is the proud culmination of my experience in TU-AMA and a legacy I once only hoped I would be able to bring to life.

Social Impact is at the heart of TU-AMA and we are honored to be trusted with such an important and personal project. We are extremely grateful for everyone who has supported us so far and for the support from the Fox Alumni Association. Our work is far from over and we ask everyone to repost and share Beth's Story and registry to help us find a living kidney donor.

What to do:

Everyone, please share Beth's story and registry. Also, Interested Donors, please

"See if You're Qualified to Donate" at https://www.nkr.org/KDY988.