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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.

Lynn Murphy in Kosmos

Ineffective Rationalism and Effective Alibis | Part 1


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.


Published in Volume 24 Issue 3

Ineffective Rationalism and Effective Alibis | Part 2


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.


Published in Volume 24 Issue 3

Philanthropy as a Territory of Transition


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.


Published in Volume 22 Issue 3

Coming Soon

The Village Way

Practices for Belonging in a Fragmented World

For thousands of years, we lived according to the principles of village life. Then, around the 14th Century, our lives were reorganized by rulers around growth and accumulation – often at the cost of community, equity, and the living Earth. What would it mean to return to simplicity, and mutual care?

Join us for a 9-month inquiry into this question, exploring how we participate together in a time that calls us back to community, resilience, and shared life,

Join the Circle

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