For the past four years I have been involved with an amazing partnership at Pepperdine University. Each semester my team and I have the honor of interacting with a Marketing Research class. The students are divided into five or six teams and they have the opportunity to interview my team in order to gather information about World Impact. Then they spend several weeks conducting research and hosting focus groups about different aspects of nonprofit social media engagement.
I know this all sounds technical and kinda boring, but I love getting to interact with and learn from these students. At the end of each semester I go out to the campus and listen to each group present their findings. Their reports have been invaluable, and this past semester was no exception.
Maybe you heard about the hardships Pepperdine experienced last year. They were affected by the southern California fires, they had to close campus due to rain and warnings of mudslides, and they lost a student in the mass shooting at Thousand Oaks. The student body was rocked by tragedy. They saw violence and heartbreak first hand, and they still showed up, did the work and presented amazing projects.
This is the beauty of partnerships. When the hard stuff happens, we are there for each other. When things look dim, we can hold the light for those feeling the darkness. When these students lost a friend, my team was able to pray for them, reach out and provide some normalcy in a very difficult year.
Please join me in praying for our Pepperdine partners. Dr. Ron Conlin is a great professor and I am always honored to work with his class and workshop ideas with him. Pray for our partnership and his students as they heal and finish this school year strong.