RINGO Funder Action Pod: What does it really take to change a system?

Since 2021, the RINGO Fun­der Action Pod has been meet­ing to dis­cuss how we can bring more equi­ty to the glob­al civ­il soci­ety sys­tem. We’ve been look­ing at how to shift resources and pow­er to local actors and reflect­ing on the role of the INGO in this process.

RINGO has inspired a num­ber of pro­to­types to demon­strate inno­v­a­tive ways of work­ing on every­thing from account­abil­i­ty to new approach­es to man­ag­ing risk, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry grant-mak­ing to chang­ing our lex­i­con. The learn­ings have been shared with the mem­bers of our Fun­der Action Pod, who have been think­ing about how each of these inno­va­tions might be brought to life in dif­fer­ent grant-mak­ing con­texts.

But through­out the past few years, a ques­tion that rais­es itself is: how does it all add up? How can we move from inter­est­ing exper­i­ments to see­ing a whole­sale change in the sys­tem? In spite of some of the best inten­tions – like the USAID pledge, sup­port­ed by mul­ti­ple phil­an­thropic donors – change can seem slow. So we asked our­selves: if we were to look ahead to 2030, what would have to hap­pen to trans­form the sys­tem?  HOW did change occur?

What do we mean by systems change?

For Rakesh Rajani, Pres­i­dent of Just­Sys­tems (a recent start-up that fol­lows on the heels of his work at Co-Impact), the first step is clar­i­ty in under­stand­ing just what we mean by ‘sys­tems change’. As a phrase, it is wide­ly bounced about, often with lit­tle mean­ing:

“As dif­fer­ent actors use and inter­pret ‘sys­tems change’ dif­fer­ent­ly, it means every­thing and noth­ing.” Rakesh Rajani

Rajani joined us at a recent Fun­der Action Pod meet­ing and asked two inter­re­lat­ed clar­i­fy­ing ques­tions:

• what sys­tem are you try­ing to change (most often it’s gov­ern­ment);
• and how will the change trans­late into con­crete changes in people’s lives?

He argues that scale is key to sys­tems change, and that pol­i­tics (defined as how pow­er is deployed) informs what is pos­si­ble.

For the RINGO Project, our inten­tion is about bring­ing more equi­ty in fund­ing and voice in the inter­na­tion­al civ­il soci­ety sys­tem, and gov­ern­ments are indeed an inte­gral part of that.

“Real sys­tems change in this space will only hap­pen at that inter­sec­tion of gov­ern­ment, fun­ders and the non-prof­it actors.” Rakesh Rajani

He sug­gests that the inclu­sion of as many actors as pos­si­ble is crit­i­cal to any sys­tems change as it builds under­stand­ing, gen­uine con­ver­sa­tions and trust. In order to build and main­tain a work­ing sys­tem, invest­ing in the capa­bil­i­ty (capac­i­ty) of the sys­tem and in the rela­tion­ship between and among the dif­fer­ent actors is key. That’s what moves things. For fun­ders, this means that invest­ing in grow­ing a work­ing sys­tem is very impor­tant if we want to achieve sys­tems change at scale.

Funders need to redefine their agenda and goals

Mah­mood Son­day, the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Reos Part­ners in Africa and an expert in sys­tems change, sug­gests that fun­ders should rede­fine their agen­da and goals. Lead­er­ship engage­ment and endorse­ment, for exam­ple, will be cen­tral to any sys­tems change efforts. Dri­ving the changes, he acknowl­edges, will be com­plex and dif­fi­cult, requir­ing invest­ment and deter­mi­na­tion.

“Antic­i­pate resis­tance and snap back and be pre­pared to adapt. Inten­tion­al con­ven­ing and a com­pelling invi­ta­tion are required for engag­ing with dis­si­dents and skep­tics. A coher­ent frame­work and approach can ensure progress despite the obsta­cles.” Mah­mood Son­day

This seems pre­scient – all too often fun­ders are frus­trat­ed that change isn’t occur­ring fast enough. How much do we invest in process­es and lead­er­ship for change as an out­come in itself? The RINGO Fun­der Action Pod mem­bers are start­ing to recog­nise that, and hope to engage their lead­er­ship in more col­lab­o­ra­tive approach­es where silos and brands are bro­ken down. Shar­ing learn­ing remains both a bar­ri­er and an oppor­tu­ni­ty. We need bet­ter sys­tems to enable this, rather than the ad hoc learn­ing that pre­vails.

And tak­ing a prompt from Rakesh Rajani, where RINGO prob­a­bly hasn’t engaged enough is in the role of gov­ern­ment:

“Under­stand that we are the gov­ern­ment and the gov­ern­ment is us. Choose inno­va­tions that require gov­ern­ment par­tic­i­pa­tion if you real­ly want to change the civ­il soci­ety sys­tem.” Rakesh Rajani

Wise words and a use­ful call to action.

Change will come from the demand side

We see the Fun­der Action Pod and oth­er areas of RINGO’s work, like our INGO Board Action Pod, as being part of the over­all equa­tion to bring about sys­tems change. How­ev­er, both of the experts agreed that change won’t come from the pow­er hold­ers:

“Strength­en demand from civ­il soci­ety. Increase pres­sure on pri­vate phil­an­thropy and gov­ern­ment to fund in the major­i­ty world with a focus on the CSOs that fol­low what com­mu­ni­ties want.” Rakesh Rajani

Fun­ders are well-versed in fund­ing advo­ca­cy towards gov­ern­ment on a range of pol­i­cy are­nas. But are they pre­pared to fund advo­ca­cy towards them­selves?

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Pho­to by Linus Nylund on Unsplash