Efforts to foster regional community development often require partnerships between the government, business, and nonprofit sectors. Such collaboration often supports innovation, impact, and resilience to address community challenges and opportunities. But, because the participants have different needs and motivations, it can be challenging to convert a desire to do good into action.
In this webinar, we explore a structured process for starting small to innovate and scale up. The Minimum Viable Benefit process is a strategy for agenda-setting that can help collaboratives start up or adapt effectively to changing conditions.
On-demand webinar
Recorded: January 27, 2026
Shared resources
- Starting small to innovate and scale (Slides from presenter Kathy Quick)
- Cross-sector initiatives should start small: Learn about the minimum viable benefit (MVB) process.
- Center for Integrative Leadership: Read about the center and their focus areas.
- Intersector project: Explore collaborations involving people from multiple sectors working toward a common goal.
Presenter
Kathy Quick, PhD is professor and Gross Family Chair at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, academic co-director of the Center for Integrative Leadership, and state specialist in leadership and civic engagement with the University of Minnesota Extension. Her work focuses on bringing together people with diverse perspectives to address high-stakes, complex, and often contentious public policy challenges. Her work utilizes ethnographic research methods to identify practices and processes that improve or impede equity and inclusion and translates those insights into teaching, facilitation, and applied work with graduate students and community partners, including collaborations with tribal governments, public and nonprofit organizations, and international research networks.
Dr. Quick brings extensive practitioner experience to her scholarship, having previously worked in environmental advocacy and policy analysis internationally and in community development roles for local governments. She holds a doctorate in planning, policy, and design from the University of California, Irvine.
Reviewed in 2026