Welcome to our New Executive Director

By Rick Chandler 

The Foundation is very pleased to welcome Jenni Collins as our new Executive Director as we continue our ongoing support of Madison’s public libraries and prepare to take on new challenges. Jenni brings an outstanding track record, a broad set of skills, a wide range of community contacts, and lots of energy and enthusiasm to the Foundation.

Jenni will be joining us in December. She has served for the past three years as the Director of Development and External Relations for the Madison Children’s Museum. In that role, she provided leadership for the successful campaign to raise $10 million for a new children’s museum in downtown Madison and handled a range of other duties as a member of the senior management team.

Prior to moving to Madison, Jenni was responsible for marketing at the New York Hall of Science and the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and she has assisted nonprofit organizations in a number of other positions, including teaching and consulting work. She was recently honored as the Outstanding Fundraising Professional for 2010 by the Greater Madison Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Jenni is a native of Illinois and has a B.A. degree from the University of Illinois and an M.A. degree from Tufts University. She lives in Madison with her husband and two daughters.

Jenni’s experience with capital campaigns will be extremely valuable as we embark on the Central Library capital campaign (our largest campaign ever, by far). Planning for the Central Library project is moving along well. The architects have been holding public listening sessions and are using that input and their experience with library projects nationwide to develop some exciting concepts for the design.

As our new Executive Director, Jenni will also oversee our ongoing activities, including conducting our annual spring and fall fundraising campaigns, making annual grants to support library programs, expanding our marketing efforts, and presenting special events.

While the search process for our new Executive Director took place, our interim Executive Director, Kathy Wisnefski, did a great job of maintaining our momentum and preparing for the upcoming capital campaign. The Foundation is well-positioned to do more to help the public library system meet the ever-increasing demand for library services. We appreciate all of your past support, and we hope you share our excitement about the opportunities for the Foundation in the coming years.

 To see the City of Madison's Press Release Click Here