Partnerships can range from networks made up of hundreds of organisations through to joint ventures between two or three organisations. This broad definition encompasses a multitude of types of collaborative arrangement with quite different qualities, so it is helpful to identify some basic types of partnership and to differentiate them in terms of their aims and outcomes.
TPI’s ‘Partnership Spectrum’ is a way of visualizing the range of different collaborative arrangements that fit within the partnership definition. The framework includes ‘leverage / exchange partnerships’ in which the partners are the main beneficiaries, however, TPI’s research and guidance, while applicable to all types, focuses mainly on the latter two types of partnership to deliver:
2) Better traditional development: partnerships that deliver more than the sum of their parts and thus increase the impact of ‘traditional’ development
3) Transformational development: Partnerships which undertake system transformational development.