On the map: Madison momentum continues after hosting 2024 Nature Everywhere Conference

Hosting the Nature Everywhere conference was a pivotal moment that not only put us on the national map but also strengthened our local presence. It reinforced that the work we’re doing here is part of a much larger national movement. – Autumn DeMet, Madison Nature Everywhere Coordinator

In 2024, the city of Madison, Wisconsin, hosted the Children & Nature Network’s 2024 Nature Everywhere Conference. The conference showcases the work of cross-sectional leaders who are committed to all children accessing nature wherever they live, learn and play. More than a year later, the Madison Nature Everywhere team believes hosting the 2024 conference has strengthened its local presence while putting it on the national map. 

Madison’s Nature Everywhere Community team is a partnership between Public Health Madison & Dane County, the City of Madison, Aldo Leopold Nature Center & Nature Net, Olbrich Botanical Gardens within Madison Parks, and Madison Metropolitan School District. For more than 20 years, many of these partners have connected Madison’s children and families with the region’s parks, gardens and museums through Nature Net — an environmental learning network of twenty sites that offer experiential, place-based environmental education for families and teachers. Then, Madison joined the Cities Connecting Children to Nature initiative in 2016, and in 2023, the city was selected to participate in the Nature Everywhere Communities initiative.

As James Edward Mills — journalist, National Geographic Explorer and Madison local — put it, “Getting kids into nature is baked into our cultural identity here in Madison.”

Even with their strong history of cross-sector collaboration, the one-two punch of transitioning to a Nature Everywhere Community in 2023 and then hosting the 2024 Nature Everywhere Conference helped the Madison team “reset.” According to Justin Svingen, Madison Nature Everywhere team lead and Public Health Planner at Public Health Madison & Dane County, planning for the conference provided “an opportunity to pause, look back, see the things we’ve accomplished, and provide some energy for us to jump forward.”

Moving the work forward

And jump forward they have.

Since the 2024 event, the Madison Nature Everywhere team has hired Autumn DeMet as a full-time program coordinator and landed a $50,000 catalytic grant through the Nature Everywhere Communities initiative. This has boosted relationships with partners, including the school district, library, parks and smaller organizations, while accelerating the city’s green schoolyard and nature-smart library initiatives.

According to Tanya Zastrow, Executive Director of Madison’s Olbrich Botanical Gardens, “Bringing on a full-time coordinator, Autumn, has made a huge impact. We’re making leaps and bounds of progress compared to baby steps before.”

“We have a lot of momentum now in our partnerships, especially with schools and libraries,” DeMet acknowledged. The new program coordinator sees herself building on the existing strong reputation of the Madison team — while also benefiting from the conference exposure: “Nature Everywhere has elevated the visibility and credibility of our work.”

Elevating the visibility and credibility of the work in Madison

Several Madison community members, both from the Nature Everywhere Community team and from outside of it, presented at the 2024 Nature Everywhere Conference. Mills, a member of the Madison Nature Everywhere Community leadership team, was the conference keynote speaker:

Having the Children & Nature Network’s Nature Everywhere Conference in Madison was a great affirmation of our continuing work in Wisconsin’s capital city to get kids outside. I was deeply honored to offer the keynote address and share a bit about our ongoing efforts that bridge the gaps of access to public spaces among the most vulnerable in our community. In many ways, hosting this event elevated our work.

The conference not only elevated the visibility of local partners — such as Mills’ Joy Trip Project, the Aldo Leopold Nature Center and the Olbrich Botanical Gardens — but also legitimized their work. “There’s just something [gained] when your community sees its local leaders wheeling and dealing in this national space, sees that they really do know what they’re doing,” Svingen said.

“Hosting the Children & Nature Network’s Nature Everywhere Conference allowed our community to showcase the many outdoor recreation resources that make Wisconsin a national destination for public access to natural spaces,” Mills said. Zastrow added, “It gave a lot of pride to the Madisonians who attended. Just that pride in the city and the work we’re doing and to share it with our peers.” 

The conference “not only put us on the national map,” DeMet explained, “but also strengthened our local presence.” “From a city and parks perspective, people took the work a little more seriously after the conference — and understood it better,” Zastrow said. Svingen added, “This visibility with local partners, elected officials and people in positions of power has helped us to move the work forward.”

Part of a larger movement

The Nature Everywhere Conference also linked the city’s local efforts to the larger children and nature movement. The conference proved that “a lot of people in the U.S. and beyond are concerned about this and committed to doing the hard work,” Zastrow said. This has fueled their partnerships, Zastrow explained:

When I talk with our partners — elected officials, park employees, leaders of organizations, educators, all of the folks we work with — they know that we’re part of this greater national community. And that really helps a lot — seeing our work as part of something bigger has a big impact on what we can achieve.

DeMet has drawn a similar conclusion after experiencing local organizations eager to collaborate: “I can’t remember approaching anyone in the community who hasn’t taken our work seriously . . . Some of that is intertwined with the fact that we hosted the conference and are part of this larger, national movement.”

The Children & Nature Network’s Support

The Madison Nature Everywhere team also credited the Children & Nature Network’s conference planning team for boosting its local initiatives. During the planning stage, the event planning team made a point of learning what local partners wanted to get out of the conference. They then scheduled some speakers and sessions tailored towards obstacles Madison was grappling with and with the city’s specific goals in mind.

The Children & Nature Network also did some of the heavy lifting associated with hosting a conference. Zastrow explained, “The Children & Nature Network made it pretty easy. I’ve been a part of hosting other national conferences, and the lift on the host city wasn’t nearly as much with Nature Everywhere.”

When I asked the Madison team if they would recommend other communities hosting a future Nature Everywhere Conference, they answered with one word: Absolutely.

Moving Madison forward 

Equipped with new leadership, increased visibility and credibility, and a sense of being part of the larger children and nature movement, Madison’s Nature Everywhere Community team has gained momentum since hosting the Nature Everywhere Conference in 2024. As Zastrow put it, “Are we where we need to be? No. The path is still ahead. But now it’s a little bit smoother.”

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