In 2003 in the early days of the founding of the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy, Jane Livingston, a cooperator from Maine, nominated Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo to be a part of the board of the ECWD. Her motive: more women needed to be in the leadership of the cooperative movement. Since her successful election as a member of the ECWD's board called the Eastern Coordinating Counsel, Ajowa went on to become a founding board member of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives in 2004. She was an ECC member for nine years, and a board member for the USFWC for eight years. She cofounded the Ella Jo Baker Intentionally Community Cooperative in Washington DC in 2003 and lived in that community for eight years, serving as its Secretary and Treasurer for most of her stay. She was also a board member of NASCO and NASCO Development Services. She has also served as Chair of the Democracy at Work Institute and a board member for Ujamaa Collective in Pittsburgh. She primarily works with Grassroots Economic Organizing as a co-editor publishing the GEO newsletter which she has been doing since about 2005. She has a master's degree in Business Administration and in Community Economic Development, both from Southern New Hampshire University. She traveled to Mondragon in 2011 and did and continues to do cooperative organizing in the Washington, D.C. area where she is based. She has a particular interest in internalized superiority and inferiority.
