CoRe supports its partnerships through three primary mechanisms:

Program grants for research, development, and outreach. For example, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ) has invested in cross-regional action research and development of practitioner and policy guidance. The CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) invests in convening, capacity building and analysis comparing lessons from diverse agroecosystems.

Partner co-investment for joint development of activities and outcomes within existing programs. For example, the International Land Coalition (ILC) co-invests to organize international workshops, build an emerging community of practice, and document lessons, drawing on its core funds from the European Commission, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Irish Aid, and BMZ.

Service agreements for delivery of targeted capacity building, research, or advisory services. This enables shorter term inputs responding to more specific areas of identified demand. These include workshop facilitation and documentation, tailored training programs, production of research reports or guidance for a particular area of program development, participatory program evaluation, strategic reviews, and policy dialogue processes. For example, the German NGO Welthungerhilfe commissioned CoRe to conduct a program evaluation of its Land for Life initiative in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.