This is the fourth and final part of a four-part series where I am documenting the journey and lessons learnt from building The Comms Avenue vision with God. You can read the third part here.
Looking at my journey with God so far, He has led me to build several things. Whether it is within or outside an organisation, God has helped me to build structures that remain in place years after I have left the organisation or system. So when we started building The Comms Avenue vision, I knew that we had to put the right structures in place which would make it possible for the vision to run with minimal input from me.
One of the first things we did was to put on paper the kind of structure we wanted to build and the framework we would be operating with. And we started to take baby steps. Let me give you an example. We knew we wanted to position The Comms Avenue as a social enterprise that global organisations would want to partner with and support. That meant we needed to put in place a structure that would effectively showcase our credibility, transparency and results.
With God’s guidance, we created an organogram and a structure document that outlined how we operate. The next thing we did was to get an advisory board that we will be accountable to. This is one of the best things that happened to us to be honest. It took over a year for us to put together our advisory board because we literally waited on God and He handpicked every board member. And truly, we have reaped the benefits of that decision. Our board members have been a solid rock in our building journey.
We also started to put in financial structures in place to stay accountable even when The Comms Avenue was not making that much money. It may have seemed unnecessary but that level of structure was helpful when it was time for us to go through an audit process. Yes, we are ensuring that we have audited accounts that can be accessible to partners and funders. There are other regulatory steps we have taken but I won’t bore you with those. But I’d say this, at every point God highlighted the need for a deeper level of structure or the other, it really wasn’t convenient and sometimes, we didn’t even have the funds to do them. However, I knew that if God has said we should do it, then we just have to. And everything He asked us to do has paid off so far.
This year, we launched our Chapter structure. As our community started to go stronger across different countries, we knew it was time to build a scalable structure that would allow us to support Comms professionals within their local context. A lot of research went into creating our Chapter structure. In fact, we are still learning as this is something new but it’s been great to see the difference implementing this Chapter structure is already making.
Name any programme or activity we run in The Comms Avenue, I can tell you for free that there is some sort of structure around it. I remember the first time I had to be out of the country in middle of planning an event with an organisation we were collaborating with for the first time. The boss called to say, “I hope the team will execute this with the same level of diligence as you.”
Let me be honest, I was like, “Hey God, please help us.” But God quickly reminded me that we had a good structure and He also said, “Trust your team.” The event went exceptionally well, even though I was following behind the scene like a hawk from another country. What we have learnt is that when we have a good structure or framework, it is much easier to replicate on multiple fronts and it is much easier to scale. That’s what we have experienced with our mentoring programme. Not only have we run six batches of the programme, we have also used our framework to successfully develop and implement mentorship programmes for other organisations.
The truth is, we won’t be where we are today without God. The Comms Avenue is a vision that has been pioneered and built with God. And that is why we never stop giving Him the glory for every win and every impact made.
Personally, God has transformed my life and career journey through building this vision. On many levels, I am not the woman I was in 2020. I have learnt how to trust God more. I have learnt how to be patient and how to be a faithful steward. I have learnt to keep my eyes on God as my only source. This has been helpful in terms of walking away from things that don’t align with His will or plan. I have learnt to give myself and support others in their professional journeys.
As I now enter a time of transition and the time to pass on baton has become imminent, I am grateful that we were diligent about building structures that will ensure the stability and continued growth of this vision. We welcomed our new Executive Director during the week and this is yet another milestone for us.
There are many more things for us to do and I am glad there is a team that will continue to run with the vision with the same passion and dedication as I have done over the last four years.
So what are the lessons to takeaway from this final part of the series:
- Enjoy the journey. If you are an overthinker like I once was (amen to that!) you’ll find yourself worrying and over-analysing so much that you’d miss the beautiful moments in the journey. Take some time to enjoy your journey and enjoy your process.
- If the vision is beyond you, then you need to think about succession from day one. Why build something that cannot function without your active involvement? Ask God about the structures that you need to build. Do your research, learn from others and then begin to implement. Don’t wait until you become ‘big’ before you start putting in structures.
- Document the journey. I journal every day and I can’t describe how it feels when I go through my old journals and see something that God did or something that He said. I recently saw a prophetic word God gave about The Comms Avenue in 2020 and we are walking in the reality of that prophetic word. Reading it filled me with so much gratitude.
- Don’t be afraid to let go and move to the next assignment when the time comes. You may start the building work but you may not be the one who will take it to the next level. Be sensitive and flow with God. When He says it is time to pass on the baton, please do so!
Thank you for reading the Building with God series. I pray reading through these posts has blessed you as much as it blessed meas I wrote them!
