How to use a Collaboration Agreement

The Collaboration Agreement template is ideal for temporary projects between businesses, particularly online ventures. If you and another business are looking to come together to work on something amazing, do it protected.

This agreement should cover what the project is, who is responsible for what and when everything is due. Let's break it down.

Collaborator Duties

As collaborators, it's important to be clear about each person's responsibilities for the project.

The contract should define what you will do and what they will do.

For instance:

The parties agree to collaborate on a project (the “Collaboration”) in the following manner:

The Collaboration will produce: 

Collaborator A will be responsible for the following duties:

Collaborator B will be responsible for the following duties:

Say you're creating an event, and you are responsible for booking speakers and entertainment, and your collaborator will find the venue and perform the marketing.

Put that in this section.

Be as specific as possible in terms of who will do what to reduce misunderstandings later.

Contributions

Next up, how will the collaborators pay for this project?

Contributions can be in the form of cash or services. 

If you will provide the capital, note the value, i.e. how much money you will contribute.

And if the other party will contribute in services and expertise, note the value of that here as well. 

The amounts do not have to be equal, but should represent what each party will willingly contribute to this collaboration when the agreement is signed.

In a two person collaboration, you may prefer equal contributions or value, but that may also correlate to each person's duties as described in section one.

Earnings

No let's talk about the distribution of the earnings!

The collaboration agreement should list how much each collaborator will receive in profit.

Be explicit in the section and list the percentage of profit due to each person.

This should total 100%.

And you'll also want to include how often this profit will be distributed.

Will it be paid in a 1x payment at the completion of the project when all of the revenue is in?

Or will funds come in an ongoing, evergreen fashion, in which both parties will be paid at a weekly or monthly cadence?

However this will be done, describe it thoroughly in this section so the parties understand when they will be paid and at what percentage of the profits.

IP Ownership (Copyright)

There is likely to be intellectual property created in this collab.

Depending on the project, you can expect videos, images, marketing materials, guest lists, email lists, digital presentations and more created during the term of the agreement.

Who owns all of this legal goodness?

Hash out who owns what IP and at what percentage for all intellectual property created during the course of the project.

Because once the project ends, that IP still has value. Determining the copyright owners is important, particularly if that IP will still yield profit long after the collaboration is over.

Termination

If for some reason you or your collaborator need to terminate the agreement, you'll look to your contract to determine how to do that.

The termination clause should provide a number of days notice (i.e. 14, 30 days) in which either you have to give to the other to terminate the contract.

But with a collaboration agreement it doesn't stop there.

Be clear in your termination clause about how intellectual property ownership will be handled for any IP created before termination.

What about profit?

If the party terminating is owed profit, they will need to be paid upon exiting accordingly.

And the terminating party can also separately assign their rights to future compensation and IP ownership in a separate agreement and be "bought out" for their interest in the project. 

Relationship Status

Finally, it's important to establish that you and your collaborator are separate businesses working on a temporary project and that one party is not employed by the other.

Each party is acting in its own capacity and not in an employee, partner or agent relationship.

This way no one can claim they are owed wages, benefits or the like due to this collaboration.

Watch the Video

Use a Collaboration Agreement

My Collaboration Agreement Template  is full of the terms you need to collaborator with another business on a temporary project.

This template is simple to use. Fill in the blanks and you’re ready to go! It is also easily modifiable to suit needs specific to your business.

Solid Legal Protection

Want a robust contract bundle instead? Purchase this form as part of 15 legal templates in Legally Good Club.

To learn more about Legally Good Club and get tips on how to protect your business legally starting today, watch my free legal workshop.

This blog posting is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and is not provided for specific, individual legal advice.