Wednesday, April 19th, 2023 from 12:00-1:30pm PST

This community forum, moderated by Azadeh Momenghalibaf, will host a conversation between authors Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy around their new book Post Capitalist Philanthropy. It will explore the importance of embracing paradox. The book, based on over one hundred interviews with leading thinkers, practitioners, social scientists and wisdom keepers states: "Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species." The authors will take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism to the lived possibilities for other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. These “ontological shifts”, as Ladha and Murphy call them, are at the heart of this dialogue. Creating emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or “fight power”, but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animate world. Join us in this unique conversation on the intersection of plant medicines, philanthropy and social justice!

Lynn Murphy is the co-director of the Transition Resource Circle. She also serves as 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.

Alnoor Ladha is an activist, journalist, political strategist and community organiser. From 2012 to 2019 he was the co-founder and executive director of the global activist collective The Rules. He is currently the Council Chair for Culture Hack Labs. He holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics.

Azadeh Momenghalibaf (she/her) is an Iranian-born activist and systems thinker passionate about healing and transforming the systems that drive injustice and separation in our world. With a background in global health, Azadeh spent the last 15 years advancing health justice through philanthropy, advocacy and campaigns, non-profit development and harm reduction programming. Currently she serves as Chacruna’s Regenerative Growth Officer. From 2011-2022, she served as Senior Program Officer at the Open Society Foundations working to advance access to medicines as a human right. In this role she supported and worked alongside leading global advocates and movements focused on centering and reclaiming justice, equity and the common good in a pharmaceutical system that prioritizes profit over public health. 

Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Embracing Other Ways of Knowing, Being and Seeing