In the first column of your Maintaining Your Partnership template, list all of the organizations that you are currently partnering with. In the second column, label each partner depending on the category they fall into: transactional, complementary, or collaborative.
A transactional partnership is originally formed to bring about a direct material gain for each member. You agree to share services, such as office space or purchasing power, but little more.
Complementary partners have compatible missions and may work with the same clientele. They are likely to use each other as referral sources and may work together on a community initiative or a grant, but they operate as fully independent entities.
Collaborative partners work together on a much wider scale, integrating one another into daily operations. Members of a collaborative are still independent, but the partners exert considerable influence on one another while working together to fulfill a common vision.
Maintaining your partnerships means keeping them alive and not allowing them to grow stagnant. Sometimes, maintaining the status quo is desirable, but over time it is more likely that the scope of your partnerships should evolve in response to organizational and environmental changes.