Aha Moments with Kendra- Part #6

In this episode, Kendra continues sharing the early journey of Building All Children and one of the most unexpected, defining moments along the way. After months of pouring time, energy, and heart into building the website, she found herself hesitating, unsure if it was truly ready to be seen. Like so many moments in the process, there was a tension between wanting everything to be perfect and knowing it might be time to take the next step.

But before she could decide… the decision was made for her. In a way she still can’t fully explain, the website went live on its own!

Make sure to listen to this entire episode to hear more!

For more Aha Moments visit https://buildingallchildren.org/podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome! My name is Kendra Morgan, and I'm the host of the Rise and Build Podcast, where we hope to empower you to rise up and build a strong family, knowing you have to strengthen your hands to do the good work. Come with us as we rise and build. Hey you guys, welcome to the Rise and Build Podcast. We are still in the aha moments where we abide, hear, and act. And I am just telling you all of the God stories with Building All Children. If you haven't listened to the past ones, you might go back. I'm trying to tell them in order. I'm not 100% sure they're in order, but um last time I talked about starting the services for Building All Children and how my husband and I went to Lowe's and bought a kid table and went to churches and really just started serving children for free. Um and I think in that one I talked also about um how I was starting a blog and creating a website. And that was something that I just kind of continued to build and continued to put down on paper what I wanted it to look like. I had never done either one, um, definitely have never created a website. Um, but I just ended up like, I don't even know, maybe WordPress. It was simple, easy layout. We had had the logo created. Um, and so I just really was kind of creating this website. And I remember my husband came home. Um, and I mean, I wasn't working. I quit my job really and truly to build building all children. And um, Ryan came home and was just curious, you know, what I accomplished that day. And I was just telling him that I I feel like uh the website's decent. I had worked on that quite a bit, and I wrote another blog post that of course no one knew I was doing, so no one was reading the post. Um, and I'll never forget he said, So when do you launch this? And I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, like, I mean, you've told people here and there, you've met with some businessmen, you've told some of your close friends, but like, when do you launch it publicly that you have a nonprofit? And I mean, I hadn't even thought of that. I'll never for I just kind of looked at him and I was like, not yet. Like, it is not ready to be launched. I I don't want people to know what I was doing. I mean, I wasn't raised in the nonprofit world. I hadn't been in the nonprofit world. Here I am creating a nonprofit. I kind of felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I just was not ready for it to be like public knowledge that we were gonna launch it. And so I just was like, not yet. There's a lot of work to be done. And so again, he would go off to work and I would serve kids for free and see a kid here or there, maybe talk to the mom on the phone, because at that time I was getting some family services, but on the back end, I was still creating this program. And the conversation would come up every so often, well, when are you gonna launch it? Well, when are you gonna launch it? And I in my mind, I was just like, it's not perfect, it's not perfect. It just I want it to be perfect when we launch it, and it's just not there. And so, I mean, time went by and I kept creating, and Ryan kept saying, So when are we gonna launch this? And I know not yet. It just it isn't perfect, it isn't perfect. So it was one night I was sitting on the sofa. Um I'll never forget this. I was sitting on the sofa and Ryan goes, Oh my gosh. And I was like, What? And he's like, I'm so proud of you. And I was like, For what? And he goes, You launched it. And I was like, launched what? I mean, I will never forget. And he said, You launched Building All Children. And I was like, No, I didn't. What do you mean? Well, my good friend Allison Finch knew that I was doing the website and knew that I was doing the blog post. And we don't even know how it happened, but she shared my website. She says she saw it like on Facebook, or I shared it and she shared. So, anyway, she shared my website and said, I'm so excited. This is finally out in the public. I'm so excited that my good friend is starting a nonprofit to serve children. You guys, I about had a panic attack. I immediately called her. I was, I couldn't even talk. And she was like, Do you not want me to share it? And I was like, How did you share it? And she goes, I shared what you shared. So then I went to my Facebook, there was nothing there. Like I did not share it. I did not launch it. I honestly believe the Lord got tired of waiting on me. And it somehow it just got launched. I mean, I'm not saying he launched it, but I'm just it, it just got launched. And so I remember sitting there going, okay, okay, people know about this. And I don't know how to run a nonprofit. And now it's not like in my small circle of control. It's like anyone and everyone knows about it. And my website, I mean, I created it. It looked horrible. Um, and so I I just remember the feeling of sheer panic. And then I just remembered this sense of peace come over me that was like, I called you to do this. I'm gonna provide. And I just I let it be. But then the cool thing is, is you I just have a great circle. And people were like, Kendra, I'm so excited for you. I can only imagine where this is gonna go. And the positive comments, of course, made me go, okay, I've I've got some support. Um, but it got launched and I did not launch it. I wish I could sit here and say that I had all the faith in the world and all the trust, and I did a beautiful, natural launch, but it didn't happen that way. Somehow it got launched, and my good friend Allison saw it and she shared it, and then it went from there because when she shared it, she tagged me in it. So it was all over my stuff, and that's how it got launched. And so then I thought, okay, we we really need to figure out what we're doing and how we're doing it, because it is out there. And so I'm thankful. I'm thankful for people that believed in me along the way, and I'm thankful for a friend sharing something that I did not do. Somehow I got launched because it made me kind of take that step of faith and get out there and really, really do the work. So, with that, I um had created Building All Children, but I didn't have like a true logo. So we knew that we needed a logo. Um, on my website, it was rough. The name was there, but I didn't have like colors and a logo and I guess brand branding, right? And so my husband worked with a gentleman um, and he knew that his wife was in marketing and kind of a logo designer. And so he asked me to meet with her, and it was Kate McElroy. And I ended up meeting with her and kind of just sharing about kind of what my thoughts were, um, how it always has to turn back to the Bible. Um, and so she listened and was like, give me a couple weeks and then I will get back with you on a few different logos. And so um ended up just taking some time. Um, it probably two, three weeks later, we got, oh my gosh, probably 10 different designs of our logo. Um, and I asked my friends, I mean, I asked everyone around me, and everyone had a different opinion. So I just kind of sat and really prayed about it. Um, I knew how important the branding was, I knew how important the color scheme was. I never really wanted it to be kiddish, like we work with kids, but I wanted it to have a sense of class with it. Um, and so one of the logos that she did had these different boxes. And so if you go to our website, it's the same logo. I've never changed the logo. It's the boxes, um, some were like long rectangle and some were smaller boxes, and it it just kind of went around um around the word all. So it's building at the top, and then all is in the center of the box, and then children is at the bottom. And what I felt about that whole logo and what I loved about it was the boxes, I mean, we're we're building. And so if you take boxes and you build them together, then you're building a home or you're building a family. So I loved the blocks and I loved how the boxes were different sizes, but I also loved how the word all was in the center because it brought safety. It kind of reminded me of um in the Bible, like the temple or even the villages, how they had the gates, you know, the Jerusalem wall, how they had the walls to protect their people. Um, and so the word all was in the center. And I felt like it just brought some safety. And that was one of our goals is we wanted to build children through their development, but we also wanted to build families and help them build their home. And if you feel safe, then you have a really good home. And so it stuck with me. And so we went with it. We went with the building all children and it had some yellows and greens and blues in it, which I felt was always kind of cheerful colors, and we've never changed it, we've always kept it the same. Um, I don't know, I feel like you always end up changing your logos in the future, but I mean, I've I've had it since 2014 and we haven't wavered from it. So that is how we got the Building All Children logo, and then all of our programs that we've created along the way, we've just created their logos off of the main logo, and Kate has helped create all those logos also. Um, and then come to find out, um, I ended up helping um Kate and her husband um with their children because they were in the middle of raising kids and they had some questions just like everyone does, and um, she helped me and I got to help her, um, and it it was a beautiful thing. So that is how we got our Building All Children logo.