Back to the people: Social venture firm connects WyCo entrepreneurs with a human-centered toolkit

Editor’s note: The following story is presented through a paid partnership with Network Kansas.

An initiative built on collaboration with business boosters already embedded in urban communities is deepening Network Kansas’ impact, said Erik Pedersen, sharing how the strategy helps more readily connect entrepreneurs to available resources like loans and technical assistance.

In Wyandotte County, the statewide network of non-profit business-building resources teams with homegrown Seedfolk Partners, said Pederson, president and COO of Network Kansas.

Network Kansas has 75 eCommunity Partnerships in both rural and urban communities, which provide essential tools, expertise, education, and financial resources to support community-driven entrepreneurship and economic growth.

In addition to Seedfolk Partners, the Wyandotte County group includes K-State Research and Extension, the Kansas SBDC, The Black Mastermind Group, The Toolbox KC, The HUB Argentine, KCSourceLink, Wyandotte Economic Development Council, Unified Government of Wyandotte County, Academy Bank, and Busey Bank.

“At its core in a community is a leadership team that looks at what they can do to support and grow a thriving ecosystem in their geographic area,” he said. “Then Network Kansas’ job is to support that with gap financing or programs or expertise or bringing valuable relationships to the table — like other resource partners — that need to be there.”

Advisors from Seedfolk Partners — a social venture consulting group led by Katie Kimbrell and Veronica Alvidrez that is dedicated to bringing human-centered design (or design thinking) to social impact systems and initiatives — have taken that mantle in Wyandotte County and run with it, Pedersen said.

“They have exceeded every expectation I could imagine in terms of their ability to dive in, develop relationships, bring people to the table in an energized fashion, skillfully intervene and draw out a conversation around strategic planning and how the group can support entrepreneurs and then affect change,” he detailed.

Pivoting into broader impact

Seedfolk Partners goal is to make innovation accessible and repeatable through human-centered design (a problem-solving framework based on empathy and iteration), Kimbrell and Alvidrez shared.

The duo — both former educators — initially got their start by bringing design thinking into the classroom with Startland. Now they are not only bringing it to education systems but also non profits, foundations, civic organizations, and socially-minded businesses.

Veronica Alvidrez and Katie Kimbrell, Seedfolk Partners, after completing the 2024 NXTSTAGE Enterprise Engagement Series cohort in Wichita; courtesy photo

“We’re just still passionate about helping others do good work and improve how they do it,” Alvidrez explained. “That’s really what drives us is bringing innovation to spaces where it’s typically not accessible due to funding constraints. An innovative role is expensive to fulfill, and we know that can be lacking in both the non profit sector and in the education sector. And I feel like our goal is to bring that to the forefront in these industries where we don’t see it as often and we’d like to see it more.”

“We have seen design thinking be transformative in people’s lives and in systems,” Kimbrell added. “We still do a lot of work to bring that into classroom spaces, but we see that there’s so many other areas where we can unlock opportunity for other people.”

One of those areas falls within ecosystem building, they noted, which is where Network Kansas and its eCommunities come in. Kimbrell and Alvidrez first got connected to Network Kansas through their work at Startland, but reconnected during the business’ participation in NXTUS programming — the 2024 NXTSTAGE Enterprise Engagement Series cohort in Wichita.

“It was like, ‘how could we leverage human-centered design in ways that we were leveraging it on other initiatives to approach the work in the urban community – in this case in Wyandotte County – with more strategy?’” Kimbrell said.

Veronica Alvidrez, Seedfolk Partners, presents her company during NXTUS programming for its 2024 NXTSTAGE Enterprise Engagement Series cohort in Wichita; photo courtesy of NXTUS

Regrouping to cover what’s missed

The eCommunity in Wyandotte County meets once a month to strategize around regional development and what improved offerings they want to see in the ecosystem, the Seedfold duo shared.

“What we’ve done is hit the reset button in understanding, ‘What does success look like for Wyandotte County? Where? Where are the gaps that we need to fill?’’ Alvidrez continued. “I think what’s exciting is knowing that we have an opportunity to do a grassroots type of approach. We’re really involving voices directly impacting these environments versus what typically is done when decisions are made from outsiders pushing that in.”

Seedfolk Partners is also helping empower the leadership group as they work on initiatives like the KCK Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge and improving access to loans through the Empower Fund.

Katie Kimbrell presents Seedfolk Partners during NXTUS programming for its 2024 NXTSTAGE Enterprise Engagement Series cohort in Wichita; photo courtesy of NXTUS

“It’s really been about building stronger relationships and resetting the vision and the format,” Kimbrell said.

“With Seedfolk Partners, there is a very energized group of people at the table making impactful change,” Pedersen added.

But it’s more than just what’s needed for the ecosystem, Kimbrell and Alvidrez, said noting there’s room for leadership development at the same time.

“Our approach is ‘How might we empower those leading and doing the community development work, so that they can do meaningful and impactful change that is prolonged and sustainable?’” Alvidrez explained.

“It seems simple,” Kimbrell added, “but it’s so common for initiatives to happen without centering on people who are at the center of it.”

The duo reaches into their teaching toolbag to facilitate conversations, collaboration, and critical and strategic thinking with the group, Alvidrez said.

“Many of them have this refreshed feeling,” she continued. “I think having these conversations of community development can be very impassioned, but often we just keep talking about the same thing and that can stifle growth and community cohesion. So I think coming in as educators and as coaches, we take a different approach.”

The idea, Alvidrez noted, is that when they take their hands away, they’ve left talent prepared with a toolkit to follow.

“Then that innovation can continuously happen in that group,” she explained. “They can strategize about problems coming in.”

Many times, the assumption is that funding is all that is needed to help the entrepreneurial community, the duo said. While funding does help communities grow, the first piece is collaboration and pouring into the talent because they need to be equipped to make decisions about funding and other issues.

“Sometimes people think they can just throw money to create solutions, and when that happens it’s the people development that is missed,” Alvidrez added. “I love that — in this focus — we go back to the people.”