Partners

Partners are essential to developing sustainable programs. Partners can bring particular expertise to your program and enhance its credibility. Building partnerships can strengthen the resources, tools, and experience to effectively implement your program, and may help reduce your project’s dependence on external agents to carry out project tasks. 

Working in partnership means sharing roles and responsibilities to build a base of support and commitment to achieve your program goals. Partnerships can strengthen ownership in and sustainability of the program. It is always a good idea to include partners in the early stages of your program planning in order to ensure their full commitment and engagement. 

In deciding on partners to include, you should:

• Identify appropriate stakeholders for your program;
• Consider how they will meet your program’s needs and enhance its implementation;
• Define partner roles and responsibilities in a Memorandum of Understanding
• Ensure that there is good representation of all relevant stakeholders among your program partners 

The Resources Sidebar includes links to IARD's Toolkit for Working Together and other helpful tools to help you navigate partner relationships.