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The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Partnerships (LSAMP) program funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF) brings together partner institutions of higher education to promote student success. Teams of regional partners build programs to support their students in academic, research, and career achievement. Developing programs that meet the needs of a cooperative alliance composed of institutions of varying sizes and types requires logistical planning and flexibility. This paper presents a summary of factors that were considered as a new alliance, Southern and Central Illinois LSAMP (SCI-LSAMP), established through a multi-year planning process. The goal of the alliance was to create an integrated LSAMP program that facilitates students' growth within their home institutions and builds connections across the alliance’s partner institutions. Factors considered to build a cohesive program include existing institutional programming, research infrastructure, administrator and faculty workflow, schedules and needs, and conversations with established LSAMP programs. This paper aims to serve as a roadmap for new alliances to consider as they plan for multi-institution collaborations.