RINGO at a Crossroads: Reflections from the Community

After over five years of reimag­in­ing what an equi­table and just glob­al civ­il soci­ety could look like, devel­op­ing and test­ing inno­va­tions, and build­ing a com­mu­ni­ty of change­mak­ers, the RINGO Project finds itself at a piv­otal moment.

The wider land­scape is shift­ing. Oth­er bril­liant sys­tems change ini­tia­tives are con­ven­ing stake­hold­ers and cre­at­ing spaces to chal­lenge the sta­tus quo, and fund­ing for this kind of work is increas­ing­ly con­strained. In this con­text, we want to ensure that RINGO is com­ple­ment­ing rather than dupli­cat­ing efforts to shift pow­er. 

On 24th June 2026, we con­vened the RINGO com­mu­ni­ty and asked you to help shape our next strate­gic path­way. We asked three ques­tions: whether RINGO is still fit for pur­pose; what con­tri­bu­tion we should focus on going for­ward; and how we might close well if clo­sure were the right direc­tion. 

What we heard:

RINGO should continue, but evolve

The over­all ver­dict was that RINGO should con­tin­ue, but evolve. The rea­son­ing was con­sis­tent: while the con­text has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly, the issues that RINGO was cre­at­ed to address have not been resolved, and in some respects have wors­ened. Par­tic­i­pants cit­ed that less than 1% of aid fund­ing reach­es Major­i­ty World organ­i­sa­tions direct­ly, that “shift­ing the pow­er” risks becom­ing a slo­gan per­formed rather than prac­ticed, and that five years is too short a win­dow to shift 50+ years of sec­tor habits. 

A shift in framing

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, but maybe we need a new fram­ing? RINGO stands for Reimag­in­ing the INGO,but INGOs and fun­ders seem to be in a moment of regres­sion or paral­y­sis, while the ener­gy, urgency and inno­va­tion is com­ing from Major­i­ty World actors. Should RINGO meet the ener­gy where it is, and focus on build­ing momen­tum among major­i­ty-world organ­i­sa­tions already lead­ing change? Or focus on mak­ing INGOs and fun­ders more recep­tive to that change? Is there resourc­ing, capac­i­ty and ener­gy to do both?

What’s working

RINGO Inno­va­tions

Out of the sev­en ideas that were pro­to­typed by the RINGO Social Lab, there are two inno­va­tions that are active and seen as hav­ing poten­tial to shift the dial in shift­ing pow­er:

• The Pledge for Change Account­abil­i­ty and Learn­ing Mech­a­nism (the PALM) is embed­ded in the Pledge for Change com­mu­ni­ty and is con­tin­u­ing to evolve 
• The Reverse Call for Pro­pos­als is being test­ed in var­i­ous con­texts, with two Reverse Calls being launched recent­ly by Nor­saac and YUCDA, and an upcom­ing Span­ish-speak­ing cohort host­ed by Aca­paca and Nous Cims to sup­port the prepa­ra­tion of new Reverse Calls. How­ev­er, its future suc­cess is bot­tle­necked by whether INGO and fun­ders actu­al­ly respond to it, not by the mod­el itself.  

RINGO Com­mu­ni­ty

RINGO’s role as a con­venor was not­ed as a valu­able offer­ing to the sec­tor, bring­ing togeth­er a diverse, glob­al and cross-sec­toral com­mu­ni­ty to engage in dis­cus­sions, exchange ideas, share learn­ings and fos­ter sol­i­dar­i­ty. 

Influencing

While RINGO has been tak­ing up influ­enc­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to share RINGO learn­ings and mod­els through dif­fer­ent plat­forms and forums, and been active­ly stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er sys­tems change ini­tia­tives, we also heard a push for RINGO to take a hard­er stance with our advo­ca­cy work.

RINGO’s future contribution

The com­mu­ni­ty sug­gest­ed con­crete ways that RINGO could con­tin­ue to con­tribute to sys­tems change:

Knowl­edge and infra­struc­ture:

•  Con­sol­i­date tools, case stud­ies, and pro­to­type learn­ings into an acces­si­ble, open knowl­edge plat­form
•  Devel­op imple­men­ta­tion toolk­its, tran­si­tion roadmaps for INGOs, and case stud­ies of real insti­tu­tion­al change — mov­ing from pilots to sec­tor norms

Fund­ing and sus­tain­abil­i­ty

• Explore RINGO/community self-financ­ing rather than sole depen­dence on donor fund­ing
• Sup­port alter­na­tive resourc­ing for CSOs (local fundrais­ing, dias­po­ra fund­ing, social enter­prise, pri­vate-sec­tor links) as a hedge against ODA volatil­i­ty

Structural/behavioural

• Focus more direct­ly on fun­der and INGO lead­er­ship mind­set and behav­iour
• Address con­crete struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers, includ­ing the dom­i­nance of Eng­lish in these con­ver­sa­tion

Reach and influ­ence 

• Posi­tion RINGO to help shape the suc­ces­sor frame­work to the SDGs
• Build stronger university/academic links and bring in younger peo­ple
• Address environmental/climate work specif­i­cal­ly, which par­tic­i­pants felt lagged behind oth­er sec­tors on pow­er-shift­ing

A responsible ending

If RINGO were to close, the advice offered con­verges on a clear, con­sis­tent play­book:

• Phase any han­dover — don’t stop abrupt­ly
• Trans­fer own­er­ship of work streams to local and region­al own­ers
• Pub­lish all tools and learn­ings open­ly (the “recipe book”)
• Pre­serve the rela­tion­ship net­work so peo­ple can keep col­lab­o­rat­ing with­out a cen­tral host (the “phone­book”)

Current activities

As pre­sent­ed at the ses­sion, we are com­mit­ted to con­tin­u­ing sev­er­al streams of work in 2026, includ­ing co-host­ing an in-per­son con­ven­ing in Ghana, engag­ing the envi­ron­ment sec­tor and sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of the PALM and the Reverse Call for Pro­pos­als inno­va­tions.

Africa at the Cen­tre

Tak­ing place on 1st-3rd Sep­tem­ber in Ghana, Africa at the Cen­tre brings togeth­er African actors and allies from across civ­il soci­ety, phil­an­thropy, and devel­op­ment will explore path­ways for a more resilient, local­ly led, and equi­table devel­op­ment ecosys­tem. Co-host­ed by the West Africa Civ­il Soci­ety Insti­tute (WACSI), EPIC-Africa, The African Foun­da­tion for Devel­op­ment (AFFORD), Reos Part­ners and RINGO, this is not your usu­al con­fer­ence: through dia­logue, sys­tems think­ing and inno­va­tion, par­tic­i­pants will build shared under­stand­ing, sur­face bold alter­na­tives and design solu­tions that endure long after the con­ven­ing ends. 

Engag­ing the Envi­ron­ment Sec­tor

Ear­li­er this year, RINGO con­duct­ed research stud­ies for both CSOs and INGOs/Funders to explore what it will take to shift pow­er in the envi­ron­ment sec­tor. The find­ings will help RINGO to design a process to sup­port actors in the envi­ron­ment and con­ser­va­tion sec­tor in their efforts to trans­form the sys­tem. 

Inno­va­tions

• Reverse Call for Pro­pos­als: For the past sev­er­al months, RINGO has been accom­pa­ny­ing two cohorts — one group of CSOs to pre­pare to issue a Reverse Call, and one group of INGOs and Fun­ders to explore what is need­ed to be able to respond to a Reverse Call. We are har­vest­ing the learn­ings from the process and will share a new com­pre­hen­sive guide fea­tur­ing case stud­ies soon.
• The PALM: RINGO is con­tin­u­ing to sup­port the Pledge for Change com­mu­ni­ty to imple­ment the PALM, with WACSI lead­ing on the sec­ond Part­ners Sur­vey.

What’s next?

RINGO is organ­is­ing con­ver­sa­tions with key stake­hold­ers, includ­ing our part­ners, fun­ders, allies and oth­er sys­tems change ini­tia­tives. Fol­low­ing the Africa at the Cen­tre con­ven­ing, the RINGO team will reflect on all of the insights and sug­ges­tions and assess where to pri­ori­tise our ener­gy — and what we can do prac­ti­cal­ly giv­en the avail­able resources.   

As always, we remain in deep grat­i­tude to this bril­liant com­mu­ni­ty and will con­tin­ue to keep you updat­ed as our path­way unfolds.