The Partnership for Rural Improvement (PRI) designs and tests methods of creating and strengthening cooperation among providers and between providers and users of rural public services. PRI has defined six types of collaboration (voluntary, involuntary, formal, informal, direct, and indirect) and strives for voluntary collaboration among agencies, with a balance between formal and informal collaboration. Collaboration occurs in varying degrees ranging from simple awareness of another organization's existence (cooperation) through planned participation on projects (collaboration) to a planned overlapping of boards and a joint setting of policy (integration). Both among and within organizations, horizontal and vertical collaboration are necessary. Ideal collaboration involves perfect communication and understanding of expectations and implementation among all relevant persons at all working levels of all involved organizations. Still, certain conditions must be present for a voluntary collaborative arrangement to succeed. The conditions include personal commitment of involved individuals, obvious benefits to involved organizations, organizational support for individuals, and effective communication. Feeling that collaborative relationships develop hierarchically, PRI attempts to further collaborate by teaching workshops to meet organizational needs at four progressively complex levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, intraorganizational, and interorganizational. PRI itself illustrates how to use this conceptual framework in implementing an active collaborative program. (SB)