Lynn Murphy
Lynn Murphy is co-director of the Transition Resource Circle and co-author of the book Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse.
Lynn is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a “conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.
Ineffective Rationalism and Effective Alibis | Part 1
Journal Article
In this two-part essay, Ladha and Murphy track the rise of the Effective Altruism and Longtermism movements, and their current influence shaping philanthropy and policy. The essay reveals how the underlying logic and approaches of these “extreme rationalists” is structured to avoid addressing the root causes of social issues.
Ineffective Rationalism and Effective Alibis | Part 2
Journal Article
Moving beyond the narrow metrics and techno-utopian fantasies of the Effective Altruism and Longtermism movements, and through a systemic and historical lens, Part Two of this essay advocates for an alternative logic, one expressed through a post-capitalist approach to philanthropy.
Philanthropy as a Territory of Transition
Journal Article
This article focuses on philanthropy as a territory of transition, rebalancing wealth, knowledge and power while repairing historical injustices. It explores that philanthropy can exacerbates our current exploitative system through undemocratic and unaccountable processes; by increasing endowments through existing market mechanisms; and through a lack of imagination on how to support the requisite paradigm shifts.