For CARE, partnerships are defined as mutually beneficial alliances between organizations, where roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities are clearly defined; they are based on a shared understanding of the objectives and purposes of the work to be undertaken together and involve joint contributions of resources, shared risks, and shared control of program and financial information. CARE implements many different types of partnership, including subcontracting, direct-funding, joint venture, consortium, and networking.

As a result of strategic planning decisions made over the last seven years, CARE is now working increasingly through partners in all of our projects. We currently implement partnership MOUs with over 230 local organizations for implementation of activities in maternal health, primary education, urban and rural infrastructure, community-level capacity building, disaster management, HIV/AIDS prevention, and microfinance. Click here to read the list of local organizations currently partnering with CARE.

Most of CARE's existing partnerships can be categorized as subcontracts, where CARE relates in a top-down manner with the partner organization - somewhat as donor would. Although there is certainly a continuing need for this type of contractual relationship, we acknowledge that it is not a "true" partnership. To address that gap, we are developing a long-term, organization-to-organization partnership initiative. Click here to read more about this initiative.