Meet Marina Pavlov – Florida Nonprofits Certification Faculty Member
Marina Pavlov is the President and CEO of the Florida Association of Nonprofit Organizations, Inc., a statewide resource center for Florida’s 52,000 nonprofit organizations. She helped with the organizing efforts in 1990 and 1991 and has published the Florida Nonprofits newsletter, now called “Wz New?” for almost twenty-five years.
Marina received her BFA degree in sculpture from Florida Atlantic University and a MS degree in Education from Florida International University. She also attended Rutgers University and University of Miami for both graduate and undergraduate studies. In 1983 she traveled to Soviet Russia on a tour of Art and Architecture with the University of Virginia. She was accepted and completed post graduate work in the Doctoral Program at FIU’s Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with a full scholarship.
Marina specializes in organizational development. Under her leadership over the past years at Florida Nonprofits, she developed Florida Nonprofits programs, 57 thousand record database, newsletter and organizational structure, including the Florida Certificate in Nonprofit Management with Barry University, School of Adult and Continuing Education. Under her direction and with the active members of the FANO board of directors, she successfully advocated and coordinated advocacy on the part of nonprofits throughout the State for an overall change in Florida nonprofit sales tax exemption and on a federal level, she coordinated activities on the Charitable Giving Tax Exemption, the CARE Act, and was on record in the congressional record advocating defeat of the Istook Amendment which would have taken away nonprofit “freedom of speech.”
Over the years, Marina has done extensive fundraising, including capital campaign, direct mail, membership drives, auctions and many special events. She teaches regularly and administers the Florida Certificate in Nonprofit Management including hiring faculty, developing curriculum and Florida Nonprofits national expansion efforts.
In 2003, Marina was featured in Florida Trend Magazine to deliver the New Year’s forecast for the Nonprofit Sector. The announcement, for the first time ever, that the Nonprofit Sector has the status of “an Industry”, was the fruition of over ten years of work in Florida. Florida Nonprofits research projects spearheaded by Pavlov has identified the Florida nonprofit sector and the economic merit of all organizations and the people who work, volunteer, serve and lead them. Florida nonprofit board members are responsible for 52,000 Florida nonprofits that annually spend $58 billion ($14 billion in salaries) and control $74 billion in assets.
Prior to Florida Nonprofits, Marina was CEO and Executive Director of a 1000 member artist organization in Fort Lauderdale. Under her leadership she developed a 120,000 festival audience, expanded an art school to include 23 classes per week, and mounted over a dozen juried and unjuried gallery exhibitions annually. Other events developed under Pavlov include: Fundraising and “fun”-raising included: Masquerade Ball, Art Auction, and Midsummer Madness. The outcome of Marina’s advocacy work was State approval and funding for over $1 million to build a permanent home for the institution.
Marina lives in Fort Lauderdale, her late husband Russ Marchner, Executive Director Emeritus of the Miami-Dade County League of Cities, Inc. and co-founder of Florida Association of Nonprofit Organizations the state association established in 1989.