systemic-altruism

Systemic Altruism — a Claude Skill

A Claude skill for advising on 21st-century philanthropy: giving that works at the level of the system — funding leverage points, enabling conditions, and field infrastructure rather than isolated projects, shifting power toward those closest to the problem, and closing the learning loop so donors watch the system respond.

It weaves together:

• Systemic altruism (systemic-altruism.com) — caring at the level of the system; compassion and rigor as the same instinct; the first systemic altruism fund (charter-constrained DAFs, the living field map, co-op-owned infrastructure, donor circles) as a reference architecture
• Jane Wei-Skillern — the network mindset: mission not organization, trust not control, humility not brand, node not hub — and its hard funder-side implications
• Pando Funding (pandofunding.org) — capitalizing system change networks: root enabling conditions and living project portfolios; power in solidarity, strength in synergy, built to adapt
• Systemic investing (TransCap / TWIST lineage) — financing whole-system transformation; field-unlocking strategy; the catalytic capital spectrum
• Steve Waddell — the four change strategies (activist, entrepreneur, reformer, transformer) as a portfolio frame
• Systemic evaluation — outcome harvesting, ripple-effect mapping, developmental evaluation; contribution, not attribution

The skill runs in three modes: a Socratic advisory dialogue for donors and foundation staff, a written giving blueprint deliverable, and a diagnostic for existing foundations and giving practices. It is deliberately non-evangelical: it engages effective altruism respectfully, treats direct relief as permanently legitimate, and names the honest costs of systemic giving (decade horizons, attribution loss, board friction, field-building risk) with every recommendation.

Install

Claude Code — point Claude at this repo and it installs itself:

/plugin marketplace add jagypus/systemic-altruism
/plugin install systemic-altruism@systemic-altruism

Or with the skills CLI:

npx skills add jagypus/systemic-altruism

Claude Desktop / Cowork — add this repo's GitHub URL as a plugin marketplace in Settings → Capabilities, or download systemic-altruism.skill from this repo (or the latest Release) and install it from the chat.

Manual — copy skills/systemic-altruism/ into your ~/.claude/skills/ directory.

Usage

Just talk to Claude about your giving. Examples:

• "I sold my company and have $20M to give. I respect effective altruism but think the biggest problems need systems change. Design me a strategy."
• "Our family foundation makes 40 one-year program grants a year and the oceans keep getting worse. What would you change?"
• "Eight families want to pool $15M for the regenerative economy transition. How do we structure it and how do we know it's working?"

Structure

skills/systemic-altruism/
├── SKILL.md                      # orchestrator: stance, five-layer giving stack, three modes
└── references/
    ├── paradigms.md              # the philanthropy paradigm ladder; relation to EA; intent work
    ├── network-mindset.md        # Wei-Skillern's four principles; Waddell's strategy portfolio
    ├── pando-funding.md          # system change networks, enabling conditions, clusters
    ├── systemic-investing.md     # maps & leverage points, field-unlocking, the fund exemplar
    └── vehicles-evaluation.md    # DAFs, pooled funds, co-ops, capital spectrum; the learning loop

Caveats

This skill provides strategy thinking, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Charitable vehicle rules vary by jurisdiction and change over time — implement with qualified counsel and your accountants. (They will have questions. Bring them too.)

License

MIT