The five levels of connections are networking, cooperation, coordination, coalition and collaboration. Networking is dialog and common understanding. Cooperation is to provide coordination and limit duplication of services. Coordination is sharing resources to address common issues. Coalition is all members involved in decision making, roles and time defined and it links formal with written agreement.
Collaboration is to accomplish a shared vision and consensus used in shared decision making.
On some programs, you may network with other agencies and organizations simply to reach the target audience to deliver your program. But other programs may truly be collaborative efforts where several groups develop and deliver a program together. Or course, it's important for Extension to market its programs, but this can still be done when Extension is cooperating with others on important projects. Get Involved Start a list of various agencies and organizations you may cooperate with to develop and carry out educational programming. You might want to keep this list on your computer, printing it out occasionally since you'll probably be adding to it often as you meet more people in your community or in your subject matter area.