Marian helped found the Columbia Heights/Shaw Family Support Collaborative, where she served as executive director for nearly 12 years. An innovative network of community institutions working to support families in northwest Washington, DC, the Collaborative has combined a strengths-based approach to service delivery with focused and intensive capacity building and leadership development efforts. During her tenure, Urquilla led the transformation of the Collaborative from a pilot project to a complex and highly respected organization working in the areas of child welfare, youth development, and economic self-sufficiency. She also helped spearhead the citywide implementation of family group decision-making and worked to launch a youth violence prevention partnership that dramatically lowered Latino youth homicide rates in the District of Columbia.

In addition, she served as a senior advisor to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth, Families and Elders in Mayor Anthony Williams' administration and as a senior consultant for human capital to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development in Mayor Adrian Fenty's administration.

She has served as a staff member and consultant for a wide range of organizations, including Roadwork, the Association for Community Based Education, the Institute for Policy Studies' Washington School, Stand for Children, and the NGO Forum on Women, and is a board member of a number of local and national organizations, including the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness and Stone Circles. Drawing on her scholarly interest in the fields of race and gender studies, she is an experienced trainer in the areas of cross-cultural communication and community-based leadership development.

Recognized by the Rockefeller Foundation as a Next Generation Leader, Urquilla has been a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities and is currently an Annie E. Casey Foundation Children and Family Fellow.