Abstract

With the current global “inactivity crisis” and scarcity of resources, public organizations in the sport and physical activity context require guidance for successful and responsible partnering with private organizations. There is often a high level of support for building partnerships; however, clarification is needed regarding partnership needs, roles, and management. The term “partnership” has been applied to various relationships between organizations, varying in type, goals, and strengths, including the nature of the financial contributions involved via sponsorship and donation type linkages. The current paper adopts the view that it is more appropriate to visualize partnerships on a continuum, varying in strength of partnership (i.e., commitment and longevity of the partnership) and level of influence on the other partner’s goals, objectives, and actions. In the sport and physical activity contexts, public–private partnerships (P3s) across multiple sectors have pooled financial, product, and human resources to create sporting facilities, events, products, and programs. Examples of public partners in P3s include: ParticipACTION, Right to Play, and Agita Mundo, while private partners include Nike, Coca-Cola, Scotiabank, Barclays, and many more. The permutations and combinations of P3s that exist are vast. For example, individual athletes are also active in partnerships as part of branding efforts or driving partnerships through their own foundations. The authors analyzed related literature and examples of P3s in practice and thickened the analysis with expert interviews leading to the creation of a partnership protocol. The protocol details eight specific principles required related to the creation, implementation, management, and evaluation of P3s. These are: (i) partner needs, ii) community stakeholders, (iii) communication strategies, (iv) advantages/disadvantages, (v) management, (vi) monitoring and evaluating, (vii) learning from the past, and finally, (viii) building for the future.