Jamila Medley is a passionate advocate and educator for the advancement and growth of the cooperative economy. In her work with existing and start-up co-ops, she provides support for leadership development, cooperative economics education, navigating group dynamics, and creating adaptive systems to support group process and learning.
She is executive director of the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA), a nonprofit and co-op of co-ops that exists to improve the lives of people in the Philadelphia region by supporting democratically organized businesses, promoting the principles of the international cooperative movement, and growing the cooperative economy. Jamila was introduced to co-ops nearly a decade ago as a staff collective member at Mariposa Food Co-op. She’s spent over twenty years serving mission-based organizations in the nonprofit and cooperative sectors.
Jamila holds a M.S. degree in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania and earned her B.A. degree in Urban Studies from Connecticut College. She’s a native of Brooklyn, NY and lives in Philadelphia being a creative homemaker who finds revolutionary joy in making her home a sanctuary for herself and loved ones. She was an inaugural 2020 fellow in Securing the Roots and was the 2018 Philadelphia Community Fellow for the Shared Economics in Equitable Development Fellowship. Jamila serves on the board of directors for Ithe Independence Public Media Foundation, Movement Alliance Project as well as on the advisory boards of An Economy of Our Own, Quioveo and All Together Now PA. Jamila is also an independent consultant with Columinate.