Partnerships and collaborations will inevitably evolve and change. Hence there must be a shared commitment from participants to ongoing, comprehensive evaluation and improvement and knowledge sharing. This paper does not differentiate partnerships as separate to the community engagement agenda because in both instances, partners need to jointly engage in initiatives, ensure alignment with the key messages of partners and their communities, and ultimately, stay together. At the same time, higher education institutions are progressively developing their community engagement strategies in the short to medium term cognisant of the policy context and funding allocation formulae