Designing Comprehensive Partnering Agreements

Agreements are a key mechanism of partnerships because their role is to govern interactions. They help partnerships become more effective by allowing partners to cope with relational, performance and situational risks that characterise inter-organisational relationships. The Partnerships Resource Centre and The Partnering Initiative have developed a Partnering Agreement Scorecard based on insights from practice and grounded on theory. The tool will be of value to any organisation that contemplates setting up a new or reviewing an existing partnership. It offers a structure for generating and assessing an agreement which should fit the initial needs of most partnerships. It is our experience that addressing a number of questions in a more systematic manner seriously increases the chances of success – by ensuring all partners are on the same page, that the partnership has been set up correctly, by helping to keep a partnership on track and by providing guidance also in difficult times. As accompaniment the publication Designing Comprehensive Partnering Agreements: An Introduction to the Partnering Agreements Scorecard, provides shorthand of the most critical questions that should be addressed when developing a partnership agreement. This guide includes both an overview of the nature and value of agreements and a new tool for their construction and review.