Jodi Mailander Farrell is a former journalist who has worked in nonprofit fundraising for the past 14 years. As Vice President of Development at The Everglades Foundation, she leads fundraising efforts to support The Everglades Foundation’s mission to restore and protect America’s Everglades – the largest environmental restoration project in the world. In 2022, Jodi and the Foundation’s Development team launched the organization’s first endowment campaign to ensure perpetual protection of America’s Everglades.

Prior to joining The Everglades Foundation, Jodi was Assistant Vice President of Advancement at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, one of the largest performing arts centers in the country. At the Arsht Center, she closed six- and seven-figure major gifts, forged new relationships with national foundations, reactivated endowment giving, and championed philanthropic support for arts education programs for children with little or no access to the arts. In her last year at the Arsht Center, her portfolio brought in more than $6 million in pledges and gifts and secured national financial support for the Arsht Center’s downtown Miami neighborhood development efforts.

Jodi has been a reporter and editor for The Palm Beach Post and Miami Herald. Her writing has appeared in state and national publications, including National Geographic Traveler, Visit Florida, People, and Latina magazine. She is a former writing instructor in the University of Miami’s School of Communication and continues to serve as a contributing editor for The Sunday Long Read, a weekly e-newsletter that showcases longform journalism. She has been a volunteer youth soccer and softball coach with the YMCA of Greater Miami and the Coral Gables Youth Center, and served on the Board of Directors of the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center in Miami for eight years.

Jodi graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, where she was a first-generation college student and NCAA cross-country runner. She lives in Coconut Grove with her husband, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Patrick Farrell. They have two grown daughters.