Exploring drivers of success in partnerships that support federal trail management in the United States

The use of partnerships with external stakeholders to support federal land management objectives is a common practice amongst government agencies. At the US Forest Service and National Park Service, partnerships provide critical support to each agency’s recreation stewardship objectives. While partnerships help these agencies increase capacity and meet recreation objectives, literature on federal land management partnerships typically focuses on large-scale collaborations and single case studies. Little remains known about how inputs and processes relate to partnership success across multiple individual partnerships to support federal trail management objectives. This exploratory study examines the perceptions of agency and partner managers in a sample of 89 partnerships to support trail work at the US Forest Service and National Park Service. Using linear regression and relative importance analysis, results show that trust, capacity, and interdependence are the most salient factors to partnership success. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a secondary set of factors that should also be considered when attempting to improve partnership outcomes.