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Last Call
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Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
Jennifer Madsen, Mass Audubon’s first Central Regional Director, is in charge of the organization’s more than a dozen sanctuaries throughout Central Massachusetts, including Worcester’s own Broad Meadow Brook and Wachusett Meadow. The concept of Regional Director is fairly new and reflects Mass Audubon’s shift toward a greater focus on the wider areas surrounding both staffed and unstaffed sanctuaries. Madsen is one of those charged with implementing the organization’s new Five Year Action Agenda in the region, which includes a greater role in community involvement and climate advocacy. She sat down with Last Call to discuss some key items on her agenda, past experience and what drew her to Mass Audubon.
Which is your favorite wildlife sanctuary?
I haven’t been to all of them yet — but I think the two staffed sanctuaries, Broad Meadow Brook and Wachusett Meadow, are absolutely my favorites right now. I get to see the staff in action at Broad Meadow Brook. The trails come to life — there are classrooms, a preschool, birding classes and at Wachusett, there’s owl prowl walks at night. Between the staff and community, there’s just something really special there.
What drew you to Mass Audubon?
The fact that it is a transformative role and those don’t come around very often. When I first saw it, my first call was to Deb Carey, my predecessor, to talk more about it. She introduced me to the Action Agenda and I was just sold. It’s an inspiring, massive, bold agenda and I wanted to be a part of it. My background is supporting social justice work, especially around youth, and I sit on the board of the Regional Environmental Council and Edward Street (child services), so the ability to merge my personal interest in environmental justice with my professional skills was great. I feel tremendously lucky to be a part of it.
What part of your experience is going to be most useful to this position?
I will draw on my previous work in diversity, equity and inclusion, the social justice work with nonprofits like YWCA and Girls Inc. It’s exciting to bring that experience to Mass Audubon — I think there’s a hunger and interest for it here.
Jennifer Madsen is the new Central Regional Director at Mass
Audubon. JENNIFER MADSEN
How will you go about implementing the start of the five year action agenda in the Central region?
The five-year agenda has three big pillars — resilient landscape, inclusive access for the community and climate policy and advocacy. The first is protecting and being stewards of the land so what we’re doing is looking for specific places, where we can either put in conservation restrictions or purchase that land outright so we can steward and help manage it.
The second is all about inclusive and equitable access — expanding our urban green spaces like Broad Meadow Brook and going out into other communities. Like right now, we’re doing a lot of work at the Flat Rock Wildlife Sanctuary (in Fitchburg) where we’re doing some amazing ecological management projects out there. That’s meant to draw in more community members and foster that greater access to these spaces.
And the climate policy, that advocacy piece is really at the heart of everything we do. Protecting the nature of Massachusetts for people and really connecting people to nature.
Expand on inclusive access?
We’re bringing in more summer camp opportunities at Broad Meadow. This is our second year of using the sliding scale price model for summer camp and it brings in more populations who wouldn’t be able to access this incredible education and immersive nature-based experience. It’s going to transform who we bring into these incredible spaces and how we do, in a sustainable way. At the end of the day, we want every kid to come to camp if they want to come to camp.
Our centralized approach to work means expanding our partnerships to do more with the public schools in Fitchburg, which is something that we haven’t been able to do with the previous sanctuary system due to lack of staff and resources.
What’s the difference between the regional system and the previous sanctuary system that allowed you to do this?
It’s about a change in focus — the sanctuary system was all about the staffed sanctuaries in terms of funding and staffing. The regional system lets us allocate funding and staff to unstaffed or non-sanctuary areas, so we have a wider lens and goals include those places. We can do things that we haven’t historically been able to do now that our staff is allowed to think at a larger level.
When was the regional system implemented?
Pretty recently — really with the adoption of the Action Agenda in 2021. It was already a part of the long-term vision, and COVID just accelerated it. I’m actually the first person to hold the Central Regional title — I just came on the team in December. Deb Carey was already trying to take this regionalized approach. The Central region is why this system was adopted statewide when the organization saw that it could be done. They said if it works in Central, let’s make it bigger and broader and use it across the state.
What challenges are you anticipating?
In so many ways, I’m coming to a very privileged space — we work with strong staff who have built up these strong partnerships in the community. But one of the biggest things is that we’re still building some of the systems internally at Mass Audubon which is an opportunity and a challenge — it’s like building the plane as you’re flying. But I don’t think that’s going to be a barrier at all. There’s a tremendous will and a way. A lot of my background has been in fund development as well, and one of the challenges is going to be educating our funders about moving from that sanctuary-based perspective to that regional perspective — it’s new. I’m excited to go on walks with them and show them what we could do. Imagine the life that is at Broad Meadow Brook or Wachusett growing and going to other sanctuaries.
We, in the Central regions, are luckier than some because Deb has been working towards this centralized system. But now that there is some statewide push behind it, it’s picking up speed.
