How We Work

"Dala Institute" and our logo are registered trademarks owned by PT Dala Riset Global in Indonesia,

Dala Institute maintains compliance with Indonesian labour, tax, and manpower regulations as a core operational commitment. This includes registration and timely contributions under BPJS Kesehatan and BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, fulfilment of corporate and employee tax obligations (PPh Badan, PPh 21, PPN), annual manpower reporting (WLKP), and adherence to Indonesian employment law including written contracts, regional minimum wage standards, and THR obligations. Where we engage foreign national staff or researchers, we follow applicable work permit and immigration requirements, including RPTKA approval and DPKK contributions.

PT Dala Riset Global is obligated to charge Indonesian clients national value-added tax (PPN) as per Law Number 42 of 2009 concerning Value-Added Tax on Goods and Services and Sales Tax and amended by the Tax Regulation Harmonization Law (UU HPP No. 7 of 2021). This tax does not apply to non-Inodnesian clients.

Indonesia’s withholding tax system (Pajak Penghasilan or PPh) requires payers to deduct tax at the source and remit it to the Directorate General of Taxes (DJP).The system is defined by specific articles targeting different income types and recipients. 

• PPh 21: Withholding on employment income (salaries, wages, and bonuses) for individuals, calculated using progressive rates (5% to 35%) based on annualised taxable income. 

• PPh 23: Withholding on business-to-business payments (services, rent, dividends) for resident taxpayers. Standard rates are 2% for most services and 15% for dividends, interest, and royalties. 

• PPh 26: Withholding on income paid to non-resident taxpayers (foreign entities/individuals without a permanent establishment), typically at a flat rate of 20% on the gross amount. 

Sociocracy, sometimes called dynamic governance,  is a governance method designed for organisations where the people doing the work also have a meaningful say in how that work is organised and directed. It gives structure to participation so decisions don't depend on consensus (which can be slow and conflict-averse) or hierarchy (which can be opaque and top-down) but on a clear process for reaching agreements that everyone can work with.

The three core elements are circles, roles, and consent.

Circles are semi-autonomous working groups responsible for a defined domain — a practice area, a function, or a project type. Each circle has the authority to make decisions within its domain without seeking approval from above. Circles are nested: a broader organisational circle sets overall direction, while sub-circles handle the specifics of their area. This means decisions are made by the people closest to the work, at the level where the relevant knowledge lives.

Roles replace conventional job titles as the primary unit of accountability. Rather than a fixed position with a fixed description, a role carries a specific purpose, a set of accountabilities, and the authority needed to fulfil them. A person may hold several roles — within one circle or across several — and roles are reviewed and adjusted regularly as the work evolves.

Consent decision-making is the process used when a circle needs to make a policy decision or elect someone to a role. Consent doesn't mean everyone agrees or that a decision is perfect — it means that no one has a reasoned, substantial objection that hasn't been addressed. This shifts the question from "do you like this?" to "can you work with this?" — which tends to produce faster, more durable decisions and keeps the focus on the organisation's purpose rather than personal preference.

Decisions are made that are "good enough for now" and "safe enough to try".

If you would like to know more about sociocracy, we recommend this video by Sociocracy For All. 

We adopted Sociocracy in 2024 because our work spans disciplines, countries, and cultures, and because the quality of our research depends on teams that think independently and raise concerns early. A governance system that treats staff as implementers rather than contributors undermines exactly the kind of rigour we need. Sociocracy provides a practical framework for the participation we consider essential — not as an ideal, but as a structural feature of how we operate.

We were greatly inspired by the work of Federic Laloux's Reinventing Organizations and helped by many organisations and companies that believe in democratic ways of working. Among them, Sociocracy for All and Corporate Rebels have been a constant source of inspiration and help.

To read more about the story of adopting this dynamic governance system, read our Dispatch article on our journey to self-management. 

Our governance system means that leadership is a dynamic concept that engages all team members at certain points. Sociocracy does not mean that we are without leaders. It means that leadership is decentralised and not structurally fixed.

There are collective hierarchies throughout our structure, and the top hierarchy is the Mission Circle, and management of the organsiation is entrusted to the General Circle. This is where decisions get made that affect multiple parts of the organisation or that fall in a gap of what other circles are accountable for. The General Circle is comprised of the leads of each department circle and the General Convenor. 

Some external people want to know who the "boss" is at Dala. The short answer has two sides: there are none, or we are all bosses. More specifically, we are "bossless and leaderful". However, that does not mean a flat structure. We have accountability to our circles, and circles have accountability to other circles, and there is a clear body that ensures that all the other circles and roles are functioning properly. 

In practice, when you deal with someone at Dala, you get a person who has decision-making power within their domains. We believe that people closest to the situation are the best ones to make decisions about it.

Every staff member holds at least one role within a circle, and every circle makes decisions through consent. This means that on the questions that affect their work — how a practice area is organised, what priorities a team takes on, how a methodology is applied — staff are not consulted as a courtesy but participate as a matter of process.

Elections to roles (including leadership roles within circles) happen through a structured peer nomination process, not top-down appointment. This means that the people best placed to assess someone's fit for a role — their colleagues — are the ones who make that call, with a transparent rationale.

Circles also send representatives to the broader organisational circle, which handles strategy and cross-cutting decisions. This creates a two-way channel: policy and direction flow down into circles for implementation, and experience and feedback from the work flow back up into organisational decisions.

This isn't flat management — there are leadership roles, and some decisions require broader coordination. But authority is distributed to the level where it can be exercised most responsibly, and everyone working at Dala has a genuine structural role in shaping how we work.

Research, evaluation and technical assistance work fails in predictable ways: key concerns go unvoiced, teams defer to seniority rather than evidence, and problems surface too late to correct. Governance structure shapes whether those failure modes are likely or unlikely.

Because Sociocracy distributes authority to the people doing the work, our staff are structurally expected — not just culturally encouraged — to raise objections, flag scope issues, and push back on approaches they think are flawed. A junior researcher who identifies a methodological problem has a formal mechanism to raise it, not just an informal expectation that they might.

Because circles own their domains, accountability is clear. When something goes wrong, it's not diffused across a management chain; the circle responsible can identify what happened and adapt quickly.

And because roles are reviewed regularly and defined in terms of purpose and accountabilities rather than rank, we can staff projects with the right people for the work, not just the people who are most senior.

The result, in practice, is that our teams catch problems earlier, communicate more openly with clients and partners, and produce work that has been genuinely interrogated internally before it reaches clients or funders.

No one likes someone who does business with people who engage in slavery or human trafficking (yes, there still is slavery in the world). Slavery was wrong in the past and it is wrong now.  Some of the most vile manifestations of such oppression are exemplified in modern slavery and human trafficking. We want nothing to do with any client, service provider or person who engages in or supports these activities. The Dala Institute is strongly opposed to the oppression and objectification of humans (and nature, but that is another issue). 

Forced labour includes work or service exacted from a person under threat or penalty or for which the said person has not offered him or herself voluntarily, as well as slavery and abduction, misuse of public and prison works, forced recruitment, debt bondage and domestic workers under forced labour situations, and national or international human trafficking for labour or sex purposes, which includes slavery and practices similar to slavery. ILO definitions of forced labour include the unconditional worst forms of child labour (as specified in ILO 182).

We prefer to do business with clients and suppliers who have anti-modern slavery policies and statements. 

We will immediately terminate contracts with suppliers found guilty, or assessed in a reputable assessment, of engaging modern slavery practices in its business practices and/or supply chains without a concrete, immediate, and robust plan to eliminate modern slavery from its business.

Dala maintains a zero-tolerance approach to bribery and corruption in all its forms. This applies to every person working with or for Dala — staff, consultants, and partners — across all the countries and contexts where we operate.

We do not offer, make, or accept payments, gifts, or other inducements intended to improperly influence business decisions, government processes, or contractual relationships. This includes facilitation payments (e.g. informal payments made to expedite routine official procedures) which we refuse regardless of local custom or pressure. We do not make contributions to political parties or use charitable giving as a vehicle for obtaining business advantage.

We recognise that research and evaluation work in Southeast Asia sometimes takes place in environments where informal payments are normalised or expected. We prepare our teams for these situations, provide clear guidance on how to respond, and maintain confidential reporting channels so that concerns can be raised without fear of reprisal. Anyone working with Dala who refuses to participate in corrupt practices, or who reports suspected wrongdoing in good faith, is protected from any form of retaliation.

All financial transactions are recorded accurately and transparently in accordance with Dala's internal financial controls. We communicate our standards clearly to suppliers, contractors, and partners at the outset of any relationship.

Integrity in how we conduct our business is inseparable from the integrity we bring to our research.

Dala is committed to maintaining an environment where concerns about illegal, unethical, or inappropriate conduct can be raised openly and without fear. We believe that the willingness to speak up about financial misconduct, abuse of power, ethical violations, or other wrongdoing is essential to organisational integrity, and we treat the protection of those who do so as a serious obligation.

Anyone working with or for Dala (staff, contractors, clients, or vendors) is encouraged to report suspected or actual misconduct through their circle or, where that feels uncomfortable or inappropriate, to the General Circle or Mission Circle directly. Reports can be made with or without disclosing the reporter's identity. Where someone is uncomfortable reporting internally at any level, they retain the right to escalate concerns to relevant external legal or regulatory bodies.

All reports made in good faith are protected. No one who raises a genuine concern will face retaliation, disciplinary action, or any other form of unfavourable treatment as a result of doing so. Retaliation against a whistleblower is itself treated as a serious disciplinary matter and may result in termination of employment or other contractual relationships. Equally, reports made primarily with malicious intent to damage an individual or the organisation rather than to raise a legitimate concern fall outside the protections of this policy.

When a report is received, those responsible are expected to act promptly. The person who raised the concern will receive an update within five working days on how the matter is being investigated or resolved. If an internal investigation does not result in a satisfactory outcome, the reporting person has every right to take their concern to the appropriate external authority. The identity of anyone who makes a report will be kept confidential to those directly involved in handling it, except where law enforcement involvement makes this impossible.

Crimes against persons or property should be reported to local law enforcement immediately.

We recognise that speaking up carries personal risk, particularly in hierarchical or politically sensitive environments. Dala's governance structure, built on sociocratic principles of distributed authority and transparent decision-making, is designed in part to reduce the conditions that make whistleblowing necessary. But when it is necessary, we want people to know that we will take it seriously, handle it with care, and stand behind those who come forward.

Our commitment

Dala is committed to a safe, inclusive, and respectful environment for everyone who engages with our work. We have zero tolerance for sexual violence, exploitation, abuse, and harassment — whether it involves our staff, consultants, partners, interns, volunteers, or anyone we work alongside.

Our approach is survivor-centred. Anyone affected by sexual violence is treated with dignity, respect, and care, and retains control over how their report is handled and what happens next.

Where this applies

This policy covers everything within Dala's operations: our offices, fieldwork and project sites, remote and flexible work arrangements, and official events such as meetings, trainings, and workshops. It applies to physical, digital, and social spaces alike, and it binds not only Dala staff but also the consultants, vendors, and partner organisations we work with.

What we mean by sexual violence

Sexual violence is any act or sexual behaviour directed at someone without their valid consent, or in situations where they cannot give informed consent. It can involve coercion, manipulation, threats, intimidation, or abuse of power, and it includes both physical and non-physical conduct — from unwanted touching to sexualised comments, degrading jokes, and harassment online.

Our principles

Our prevention and response work is guided by five commitments:

Non-discrimination. Everyone has the right to equal protection, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, social status, or any other characteristic.

Support for the reporter. The wellbeing and recovery of the person reporting comes first, using a trauma-informed approach.

Confidentiality. The identities of the reporter and the accused are protected to prevent re-victimisation.

Accountability. Every action we take in handling a case must be transparent and justifiable.

Continuous improvement. We review this policy and our procedures annually to keep them effective and aligned with international good practice.

What you can do

If you have experienced or witnessed sexual violence connected to Dala's work, we want to hear from you. You can report in whichever way feels safest:

• Report anonymously online on the ethics and compliance page. You do not have to identify yourself.
• Call us or text us on Whatasapp and ask for the Anti-Sexual Violence Focal Point and the Well-being & Safety Circle.
• Ask someone you trust — a colleague can submit a report to the Focal Point on your behalf.
• Raise it with anyone at Dala you feel comfortable with, and they will connect you with the right support.

Reporting is safe. We do not tolerate retaliation against anyone who reports in good faith, and you decide how far and how fast any process goes.

What happens when you report

Reports are received by our Anti-Sexual Violence Focal Point and, where needed, handled by our Well-being & Safety Circle — a dedicated team free from conflicts of interest. Investigations are conducted fairly, transparently, and confidentially, guided by restorative and transformative justice: the goal is the reporter's safety and recovery and accountability for harm.

Throughout the process, the reporter stays in control. We can also connect survivors with external support, including psychosocial services, survivor support organisations, and legal assistance.

Where someone is found, after a fair process, to have violated this policy, consequences range from formal warnings to termination of employment or contract and referral to law enforcement where appropriate.

What we expect of everyone

All Dala staff, consultants, and partners are required to understand and comply with this policy, to report suspected cases, to cooperate with investigations, and to support — never undermine — those who come forward. Partners and vendors commit to these standards in our cooperation agreements, and we may end a collaboration if violations are found and not addressed.

Dala operates from a clear-eyed recognition that the dominant global economic model is driving environmental breakdown. As researchers and evaluators working at the intersection of environmental justice, forest governance, and community rights, we do not treat sustainability as a peripheral concern — it shapes how we work, what we buy, and who we work with.

We actively work to reduce material consumption across our operations and have structured our organisation to minimise the environmental footprint of how we work. Our distributed, remote-first model reduces emissions from commuting and unnecessary travel, and we apply environmental criteria when selecting suppliers and vendors. Where materials must be sourced, we prioritise suppliers with credible, active strategies to reduce negative environmental impact, and we give preference to products certified by recognised social and environmental standards (e.g. Forest Stewardship Council, Rainforest Alliance, Fair Trade, UTZ, and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil). We hold our own reservations about some of these systems and their limitations, but we believe that engaging imperfect certification is better than no engagement at all.

We do not have a mandatory carbon offsetting policy, and we want to be honest about why. The voluntary carbon market has been subject to well-documented criticism: inflated carbon accounting, questionable additionality, and (of particular concern to us) a long history of projects that have dispossessed Indigenous and forest-dependent communities in the name of conservation. As researchers who have worked directly on forest carbon governance, we are familiar with the gap between the promise of offset mechanisms and their outcomes on the ground. We are not opposed to offsetting in principle, but we refuse to treat it as a substitute for reducing emissions, or to endorse it uncritically as a form of environmental due diligence. Project leaders at Dala are free to make their own informed decisions about whether to offset, with full awareness of these trade-offs.

We prefer to work with clients and suppliers who share a serious commitment to environmental responsibility not as a reputational gesture, but as a substantive practice.

Dala is unequivocal in its opposition to oppression, genocide, and ecocide. These are not abstract positions — they are commitments that shape who we work with, who we accept funding from, and how we conduct ourselves as an organisation. We stand in solidarity with communities whose lands, lives, and rights are under threat, including many of the communities we work alongside directly in Southeast Asia.

We will not engage in business relationships with entities that directly participate in, benefit from, or lend material support to mass human rights violations or the deliberate destruction of ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. Where viable alternatives exist, such entities will be excluded from our supply chain and client relationships entirely. We have taken measures on several occasions in the past few years to change providers for various services following this line of thinking.

We also want to be honest about the complexity of this position. Most states exercise forms of violence and structural oppression against their own populations or others. Most large institutions operate within, and help reproduce, economic systems that are themselves exploitative. We cannot — and do not — refuse engagement with every actor implicated in these broader structures; to do so would make our work impossible and would often cut us off from the very spaces where change is most needed. Where we choose to engage with imperfect institutions, governments, or companies, it is on the basis that they demonstrate a genuine interest in moving toward more just and equitable practices, and that our involvement could reasonably contribute to that movement.

This is a line of judgement, and we hold it carefully. Entities engaged in active, systematic mass oppression, genocide, or ecocide are not candidates for that kind of engagement — regardless of the framing or the opportunity. Our due diligence processes assess potential partners and clients against these standards before we enter into relationships, and we continue to monitor existing relationships as contexts evolve.

We make no claim to perfect consistency. But we are committed to transparency about where we draw these lines and why — and to being accountable when we fall short.

Research and evaluation in contested political environments carries real risks for communities, for research participants, and for the integrity of findings. Dala applies conflict-sensitive approaches across all our work in Southeast Asia, recognising that the regions where we operate are often marked by unresolved land disputes, Indigenous rights struggles, and environmental contestation.

We conduct stakeholder mapping and context analysis before entering any field setting, and we regularly review how our presence, methods, and outputs may affect local dynamics. We do not publish or share findings in ways that could expose participants to harm, and we work closely with local partners and communities to understand and mitigate risks as they evolve. Where sensitivity requires us to limit what we report, we are transparent with clients about those constraints.

All of our work is situated. The questions we ask, the methods we choose, and the interpretations we reach are shaped by who we are, including our disciplines, our locations, our relationships, and the histories we carry. At Dala, we take positionality seriously as both an ethical commitment and an epistemological necessity.

Our team brings a range of backgrounds across political ecology, anthropology, development studies, and evaluation. We work across considerable differences of nationality, language, and social position relative to the communities and contexts we study. We practise ongoing reflexivity: examining how our presence and perspectives shape what becomes visible in our research, what gets asked, and what remains unsaid.

This means being transparent with clients and communities about our standpoints and potential biases, building teams that include researchers with deep contextual and cultural proximity to the settings we work in, and creating space within our processes for findings and interpretations to be questioned and contested. We draw on feminist, decolonial, and critical social science traditions that foreground the relationship between knowledge and power. We treat research not as extraction but as a collaborative and accountable practice.

We recognise that reflexivity is never complete. It is a discipline, not a destination.

Dala is committed to the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent in all work that involves Indigenous Peoples and local communities. We treat FPIC not as a procedural checkbox but as an ongoing relationship that begins before research design, continues through data collection, and extends to how findings are used and shared.

In practice, this means engaging communities on their own terms and timelines, providing information in accessible formats and languages, ensuring that consent is genuinely voluntary and can be withdrawn, and giving communities meaningful input into how their knowledge and experiences are represented. Where FPIC processes surface concerns or objections, we take these seriously and adapt our approach accordingly, including, where necessary, declining to proceed.

At Dala we prefer participatory methods. We believe they result in better products overall. However, participation is a spectrum, and different assignments call for and are constrained to different levels of participation. Where full stakeholder engagement is not possible throughout the project cycle, we engage a minimum loop-back to be accountable to the people who give of their time and thoughts. Therefore, we negotiate with clients and funders at the very minimum that we provide some sort of summative feedback to respondents to let them know the results of their inputs. This minimum often results in a briefing document or something that lets them know the top-level findings that were developed through the work in which they participated.

We keep as much of the data we produce and collect under our own control as possible. In 2025, we moved all of our main enterprise software from Google to our own self-hosted servers using open-source software. We did this for both ethical and data sovereignty reasons. This means that stored data, office documents and so on are stored on our own secure servers. We rent these servers and keep them in a secure data centre in Sinapore. We also back up encrypted data in Indonesia, France, and Malta.

While this covers almost all of our data, based on need, we use other services as well from time to time. Other services include SaaS for specialised tasks. Our overall policy is to avoid, as much possible, storing data in countries that have privacy laws that we feel are inadequate. 

We also avoid, as much as possible, storing data on corporate data storage services such as AWS, Microsoft, Meta and Google. 

This is a work in progress, and we are continually making efforts to enhance data sovereignty and reduce the need to store data with services that we consider to compromise data security and ethical concerns. When we do use services that rely on corporate data centres, we ensure that the data is secure and that backup policies are adequate to respect the data with whcih we are entrusted. 

The data we collect depends on who we're working with and why.

For research and evaluation partners (community members, key informants, survey respondents, workshop participants), we collect only what is necessary for the specific project. This typically includes interview recordings or transcripts, survey responses, workshop notes or outputs, and basic demographic information where relevant to the analysis. We do not collect data speculatively or "just in case."

For organisational contacts (funders, partner organizations, collaborators, vendors, consultants) we maintain basic contact and relationship records to manage our work together.

For visitors to our website and digital platforms, we collect minimal technical data (such as server logs) needed to keep systems functioning. We do not use tracking pixels, behavioural advertising infrastructure, or third-party analytics platforms that profile users. We do not collect cookies with any identifying data.

In all cases, we collect data for a defined purpose, and that purpose guides how long we keep it and who can access it.

Consent is treated as a process, not a form. Before any data collection in research or evaluation contexts, we explain in plain language — and in the appropriate language — what information we're collecting, how it will be used, who will have access to it, and what participants' rights are, including the right to withdraw.

Where standard informed consent is appropriate, we use it. In community contexts where written processes are unfamiliar, extractive, or culturally inappropriate, we work with community partners to develop consent processes that are genuinely meaningful — which may include oral consent, community-level consent processes, or phased consent as a project evolves.

We also practise what we call ongoing consent — checking back with participants and communities as analysis develops, particularly before publication or public sharing of findings.

Retention periods depend on the type of data and the commitments made at the point of collection.

Raw research data (recordings, transcripts, identifying information) is typically held only as long as needed for analysis and verification, after which identifying information is removed or files are securely deleted according to the project data management plan. Anonymised or aggregated findings may be retained longer for archival or comparative purposes.

Organisational records are retained in line with Indonesian legal requirements and donor reporting obligations and reviewed periodically for relevance.

When data is deleted, we do so completely — across backups as well as primary storage — rather than simply archiving files out of active view.

Project-specific data management plans may be available to partners and participants on request.

We support the principle of open data where it serves the public interest and where communities have consented to it. We do not treat openness as an unconditional good.

The decision to make data open (e.g. findings, datasets, or methodological materials) weighs several factors: the sensitivity of the information; the wishes of participants and communities; the risk of harm from disclosure (including to individuals, to ongoing advocacy processes, or to future research relationships); and the genuine public benefit of sharing.

In practice, this means published reports and methodological tools are openly available whenever permitted by the funder or client; interview transcripts and disaggregated data are generally restricted; community-identified sensitive information may be excluded from reports entirely, not just anonymised.

Where data will be archived or deposited in a public or restricted-access repository, we describe the access conditions clearly in the project documentation.

We prefer open-source software that we we self-host. Our stack includes more than a dozen self-hosted software packages. The main business productivity suite we use is Nextcloud, which includes Nextcloud Office (with Collabora in the backend - an online version of Libre Office). These software packages may look and feel different than what many external users are used to, but the functionality is similar, and the document formats are also compatible with commercial packages. You may also get an invite to a video call from us using Jitsi. 

We realise that for external users collaborating with us, this may be an inconvenience, but we make these choices for ethical and data security reasons. We have some user guides available to help external collaborators if needed.

We use AI tools selectively, and we think carefully about what data we put into them. We also know that not all AI is the same. Our main concern is about generative AI into which data may be input and outputs may be of use to the knowledge we are co-generating.

Within our own infrastructure, we run AI assistants connected to our own internal systems. These process data on infrastructure we control and do not send information to third-party servers.

When we use externally hosted AI tools for tasks like literature review, document drafting, or translation, we have several rules: (a) only use paid accounts with AI training options turned off, with clear privacy policies and data deletion policies (i.e. the data can never leave our secure account); (b) human intervention is always required in the output; (c) sensitive data that identifies the speaker should be anonymised before it is inputted into AI; and (d) complete control over what AI has access to in our systems.

We are aware that AI tools raise deeper questions about knowledge extraction, attribution, and the reproduction of existing biases — questions that sit close to the concerns that motivate our broader data sovereignty commitments. We are actively developing our organisational position on AI use as the landscape evolves and will update this page accordingly.

Staff and associates working with Dala are briefed on these boundaries as part of project onboarding.