The paper reports the findings of an exploratory study to assess the nature of alliances that businesses and nonprofits have developed with SMEs and cooperatives operating in low income sectors in Latin America. Cross-sector alliances were categorized according to Austin's collaboration continuum framework (2000). The findings indicate that the proportion of cooperatives engaged in at least one alliance with businesses or other non-profit organizations is higher than that of SMEs, with cross-sector alliances falling predominantly into the transactional category. Allied organizations appear to play an important role in orchestrating value chains for cooperative business ventures but not for those of SMEs.