Com­mu­ni­ty is at the heart of the RINGO Project. All of us have a role to play in shift­ing pow­er and shap­ing the sys­tem –  whether we’re fun­ders, from INGOs or inter­me­di­aries, nation­al or local civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions, net­works or move­ments, acad­e­mia, pri­vate sec­tor, and every­one in between. 

The RINGO Social Lab brought togeth­er a diverse group of change agents to work through a process of inquiry and inno­va­tion. The Action Pods con­vened fun­ders and INGO Board mem­bers to lis­ten and learn from each other’s efforts to shift pow­er in their organ­i­sa­tions. The pur­pose of every RINGO Com­mu­ni­ty Gath­er­ing, Open House or learn­ing event is to grow and nur­ture our com­mu­ni­ty and share the insights and expe­ri­ences we have gar­nered from our process — and to high­light oth­er sys­tems change ini­tia­tives across the ecosys­tem.

The RINGO Project has emerged as a trans­for­ma­tive force in fos­ter­ing more equi­table rela­tion­ships across civ­il soci­ety, between inter­na­tion­al actors and grass­roots organ­i­sa­tions from the major­i­ty world. Since its incep­tion, the project has empha­sised the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty build­ing and sys­tem change process­es to empow­er local actors and shift pow­er dynam­ics with­in civ­il soci­ety. Phase III of the RINGO Project builds on this core val­ue to strength­en our part­ner­ships and com­mu­ni­ty at region­al lev­els as essen­tial com­po­nents for advanc­ing sys­temic change.