Today we’d like to introduce you to Bridgid Coulter.
Bridgid, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Born in Berkeley, California. Graduated high school and moved to Los Angeles for college back in the 90’s. Acted and traveled, living in many places in between, but this has been my home base ever since. Two kids, one husband and a few businesses later I founded Blackbird Collective in Culver City, designing and launching our pilot location in a beautiful 12,000 sf industrial chic building in a nondescript part of the city so that I could create a home for professional women of color to gather, work, participate in wellness classes, events and programs that connected and inspired us to work-life balance from the safely of community.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The ideating and planning stages of the collective were certainly some of the smooth fun moments — dreaming about the possibilities of what we could become. Lofty goals and big hope. The first struggles came with the realities of what it takes to run a full-scale hospitality space with limited resources and no real kitchen (compared to what is normally allotted to a venture of this sort). Let just say it took a lot of friends and favors; but it was complicated. Within a few months, we found ourselves running parallel to our success and getting our stride when COVID-19 hit and community space, nor events, were neither safe or viable. And now five months in we’re thriving in the virtual programming as we build the collective globally, online. Again, running parallel to our success and keeping up with a small but mighty team.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Blackbird Collective story. Tell us more about the business.
Here’s the mission: Blackbird is a collective of physical and virtual workspaces across the globe designed for the advancement of women of color and her allies. Our myriad offerings celebrate creativity, promote wellness and encourage productivity with a balanced-life approach to impact positive social and economic outcomes. We are a network aligned in community to bolster equal access, advocate for political decency, engender hope and respect the planet.
I’m proud of our resilience and that we have been able to be of service to and make an impact with supporting all elements of the wellness of our members during the first phase of our remote time; along with inspiring professionally and gathering the community inside our portal.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I have always worked hard and trusted my gut instincts when choosing what to pursue. I the very existence of Blackbird as pure magic, a combination of black girl magic, equity and social purpose intertwined & aligned. I dreamed it, and then a space with a literal birdhouse in it appeared and we made it happen. We signed a one year lease and got to operate and then when COVID-19 hit, we only lost a couple of months of the space and were able to move out and float in the digital. There have been some hard luck moments for sure — but I feel very lucky to have this community. We simply started calling it #BlackbirdMagic.
Pricing:
- Virtual Freebird “Survey” Membership: $0
- Virtual Nomad Monthly Membership: $35
- Virtual Nomad Annual Membership: $300
Contact Info:
- Address: 1112 Montana Ave #432
Santa Monica, CA 90403 - Website: https://blackbird-collective-nomad.mn.co & www.blackbird.house
- Phone: 424.295.9400
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @the.blackbird.house
- Facebook: @the.blackbird.house
- Twitter: @blackbird_house
Image Credit:
Stephanie Macris Photography
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