The RINGO Project is a sys­tems change ini­tia­tive that seeks to co-cre­ate a more just and sus­tain­able civ­il soci­ety in which pow­er and resources are shared equi­tably. 

Launched in 2020, RINGO is the first glob­al­ly-coor­di­nat­ed cross-sec­toral effort to trans­form the sec­tor to respond to today’s chal­lenges by inter­ro­gat­ing the pur­pose, struc­tures, pow­er and posi­tion­ing of INGOs. Our main pur­pose is to reimag­ine glob­al civ­il soci­ety, where INGOs shift away from being the dom­i­nant actor in the sys­tem and take on a more sup­port­ive, sol­i­daris­tic role. We sup­port major­i­ty world actors to rev­o­lu­tionise their role and take the dri­ver’s seat with­in civ­il soci­ety.

RINGO moves beyond words and ideas to action. We con­vened a Social Lab of glob­al change­mak­ers to devel­op and test inno­va­tions that can trans­form INGO insti­tu­tions and the sys­tems in which they func­tion. We believe these inno­va­tions could have enor­mous prac­ti­cal impacts on how INGOs are struc­tured, their fund­ing and account­abil­i­ty mod­els, what this means for CSOs in the Major­i­ty World, and what gen­uine sol­i­dar­i­ty looks like. 

RINGO seeks to accel­er­ate the trans­for­ma­tion of civ­il soci­ety through active engage­ment with key actors across the sys­tem. In par­tic­u­lar, we place the voic­es and lead­er­ship of civic actors from the Major­i­ty World at the cen­tre, fos­ter­ing an envi­ron­ment that sup­ports active cit­i­zen­ship and empow­ers com­mu­ni­ties to dri­ve their own devel­op­ment agen­da.

Since Jan­u­ary 2023, RINGO is host­ed by the West Africa Civ­il Soci­ety Insti­tute (WACSI). Phase I of RINGO was host­ed by Rights Colab.

Phase III

The RINGO Project seeks to accel­er­ate the trans­for­ma­tion through active engage­ment with all actors across the sys­tem.

Phase III of the RINGO Project empha­sis­es part­ner­ships and com­mu­ni­ty build­ing as essen­tial com­po­nents for advanc­ing sys­temic change.

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PHASE II

Influ­enc­ing and Com­mu­ni­ty Build­ing

In Phase II of the RINGO Project, we lever­aged our strengths to focus our efforts on influ­enc­ing those in gen­uine posi­tions of pow­er and con­vened Action Pods specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ing two pri­ma­ry stake­hold­ers: INGO Boards and fun­ders.

We con­tin­ued to sup­port the emerg­ing RINGO inno­va­tions and con­duct­ed new research stud­ies. We grew and nur­tured our com­mu­ni­ty by shar­ing learn­ings and fos­ter­ing con­nec­tions at reg­u­lar RINGO Com­mu­ni­ty Gath­er­ings.

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PHASE I

Incep­tion, Inquiry and Inno­va­tion

Phase I of the RINGO Project involved three main stages: dis­cov­er; define; and devel­op and deliv­er. The first two phas­es involved exten­sive research, an incep­tion work­shop for RINGO Social Lab and an in-depth inquiry process, includ­ing ideation sprints. These activ­i­ties allowed RINGO to under­stand how the project can con­tribute towards sys­tems change and iden­ti­fy the key areas we would like to reimag­ine: Account­abil­i­ty and Risk; Lead­er­ship and Gov­er­nance; Resource Flows; and Sol­i­dar­i­ty and Part­ner­ships.

The devel­op and deliv­er phase saw RINGO move from ‘dis­cussing’ to ‘doing’. The RINGO Social Lab devel­oped and test­ed a port­fo­lio of sev­en pro­to­types which chal­lenge some of the major struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers to change across the sec­tors and demon­strate new ways of work­ing in order to strength­en our civ­il soci­ety ecosys­tem.

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Our Process