Meet Anjuli Morse of Babe Council in Downtown

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anjuli Morse.

Anjuli, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am a fourth-generation AZ native, I was raised and went to school in Scottsdale where I currently live. I was never someone who aspired to be “insert dream job here” when they grew up, it took me 30 years and a couple of entrepreneurial failures to figure that out (haha). I did, however, start my first company at 19, which launched me into the retail, branding, and fashion world.

Starting that company was a complete accident, but like much of my journey, I was brave/naive enough to see an open and walk through it. From there, I started what has been a 15-year career in identity design, branding, storytelling, product development, and strategy, the last 9 of which I’ve spent helping entrepreneurs and teams bring their ideas to life.

In 2014, I was asked by a client to sit in on a meeting, that coffee turned into a start-up called Sparkle School, a web-based emotional intelligence curriculum and community for women. At 28 years old, I found myself the CEO and youngest of 4 co-founders, raising money for the first time, diving headfirst into the world of tech startups. The demise of that company almost blew out my light, I thought I would never own another company after that.

I truly believed that maybe I had just gotten ALL of it wrong. But what I didn’t realize was that those three years and my co-founders were actually helping me become me. I connected with my grit, tenacity, courage, empathy and most of all; I found my purpose. I meet new women almost every day, and the thing that seems to resonate is always ‘finding purpose.’

We’ve all been told it’s THE answer, so we’re all looking for diligently, but it’s not like it’s something we’re just going to bump into on the street. I can’t explain to you how dope it is that I get to spend my days helping other women find theirs. Babe Council was born after the Women’s March in 2017, my co-founders and I were looking for a way to “get involved” and be better citizens/community members.

We quickly realized that no one had ever taught us as adults how to do that, or what that even means. So we took the advice of the Women’s March website and hosted a political letter writing event for a dozen of our friends. None of us had ever written letters to our elected officials, but we googled and made cocktails and we gave ourselves permission to do it wrong!

After that, first event we were hooked and ready to do more, so we created a private Facebook group and sent out invites to about a dozen or so women who we felt really embodied the spirit of the group, and asked them to do the same. By the time we hosted our second get together there were 200+ women in the group, and the following month we hosted our first paid event.

The feedback from women from the start has been overwhelming, which is no coincidence, we see the values and priorities for a lot of women shifting, ourselves included. We’ve marched in the streets, stood side-by-side with our sisters, and heard firsthand the cry for more actionable ways to get informed and “get involved.” Women are serious about making a change, and we believe that they’re willing to pay for help doing it.

Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth? What’s that? For dreamers, obstacles are part of the deal, but as a female founder, I am currently and perpetually faced with the reality of funding.

Women receive 2% of VC money, and angel money isn’t much better statistically. As women, we are working twice as hard with a fraction of the resources.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
We founded Babe Council last year; we like to say that we’re like Girl Scouts for grownups with cocktails! We are a female-founded and babe run startup, with a mission of helping to educate and empower women to be more civic and community-minded. By re-imagining altruism and activism, we believe we can make them a regular part of every babe’s life.

So, we create live events & products that make it easy for babes to be better citizens. To get informed, get involved, and take action in support of other women and their community. Whether you’re a republican, democrat, independent, or queen, we believe all women benefit from knowing about and how to address the issues facing their community.

Which means if you’re a woman or femme-identifying individual who’s wanted to do more but wasn’t sure how, or who might be short on time, money, energy or all-of-the-above, and because of that has never had a way to do good stuff for others, become more civically engaged, be more informed, involved, etc. we’re the squad for you! Event dues are always $10 and include a unique merit button to celebrate your good deeds.

We recently launched our first product, Pink Post, which is a political letter writing parcel with everything you need to write your legislators on three issues relevant to your community. Reporting for civic-duty just got an upgrade!

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think EVERY city is good for a business like ours and that is our plan. But the downtown Phoenix community and our network of mentors, allies, and advocates have been crucial to our scaling. Seriously, without the insane generosity of so many local businesses and folks, we would’ve died a quick death.

Our company both requires engagement from local business and is also on a mission to build more meaningful connections between businesses and constituents, double whammy means we have to be doing it right. The MonOrchid has been a supporter of ours since day one, we actually just relocated our HQ from Galvanize to the MonOrchid which we are thrilled about.

Our biggest takeaway and piece of advice to others would be to invest in your community, and your community will invest in you. We are always coming from the place of adding value; it’s because of that I believe so many doors have swung wide open for us.

Pricing:

• Babe Council Meeting Dues: $10
• Pink Post Monthly or Individual Parcels: $20

Contact Info:

• Address: 214 E Roosevelt St, Phoenix, AZ 85004
• Website: www.babecouncil.com
• Email: heybabe@babecouncil.com
• Instagram: @babecouncil
• Facebook: facebook.com/babecouncil
• Other: facebook.com/groups/babecouncil

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.