Our mission is to bring multisolving to its full potential
The Possibility
Multisolving is when one investment of time or money solves many problems at once. Multisolving…
- Aligns constituencies for greater impact
- Accomplishes more with the same budget
- Solves short term problems in ways that reduce longer term crises
- Brings people together to find win-win-wins
- Insists that equity be included in all other issues
The Obstacles
Despite its power, multisolving is still the exception, not the rule. Many decision makers lack:
- Confidence in collaborative, whole system approaches
- Practices for transcending silos
- Practical tools to demonstrate the impact of a relationship-based approach to change
- Comprehensive visions of what is possible


Our Vision
By 2030, an exponentially growing movement of citizens and leaders will be using multisolving to protect and improve biodiversity, climate, equity, health, and well-being. We work towards this vision via training, awareness building, and research.
Our Story
The idea of multisolving was developed by Dr. Elizabeth Sawin while she was the Co-Director of Climate Interactive; our research and training about multisolving was carried out as the Multisolving Program at Climate Interactive until the founding of the Multisolving Institute in 2022. As Dr. Sawin explains in her 2019 TEDx talk, multisolving emerged out of Climate Interactive’s engagement with the UN climate talks. As a leader of Climate Interactive’s analysis of pledges made by countries to reduce their climate pollution, Dr. Sawin felt frustrated by the limitations of the narrow focus of the climate talks on greenhouse gas pollutants.
Our Values
Systems Thinking
We work with interconnection instead of against it, design for feedback loops and tipping points, and help small seeds grow to big changes.
Learning
Flexibility & Preparedness
The Multisolving Institute will emerge and grow during a volatile period marked by climate change, the pandemic, and the economic and political impacts of both. We are designing our operations and strategy to be as effective as possible even in the face of destabilizations.
Equity and Justice
We commit to address structural inequity wherever we can, within our organization, in our partnerships, in our analysis, and in the wider word.
Our Partners
We are deeply grateful to many partners, including those who helped support the initial seeds of our work, thought partners, funders, and collaborators. Like multisolving projects, multisolving research, training, and communications can only happen in collaboration.

Partner Spotlight
Julis Rabinowitz Family
Mitch Julis is a Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Canyon Partners, LLC. He is a student, practitioner and proponent of systems thinking as a result of studying and collaborating with MIT Sloan School of Management Professor John Sterman. Mitch’s special interest in the food-water-energy nexus from a systems perspective and an article on the connection between this nexus and climate change led him to reframe the benefits of dealing with both challenges together (see Financial Times article on this subject). Further discussions and efforts with the team at Climate Interactive contributed to the creation of the Multisolving Project there, focused on identifying and implementing solutions to climate change that also produce benefits in energy security, health and well-being, and food and water. The Julis-Rabinowitz Family is privileged to be a founding supporter of the Multisolving Project. In addition, Mitch’s vigorous and creative sharing of ideas and research in food, water, energy, complexity theory, and climate change were a consistent source of input and creativity for the Multisolving Project at Climate Interactive.
Morgan Family Foundation
The Morgan Family Foundation was one of the earliest supporters of the Multisolving Project at Climate Interactive. Their support helped us to do research documenting bright spots of multisolving around the world and helped us better articulate the systems thinking foundations of multisolving. Development of Elizabeth Sawin’s TEDxSun Valley talk on multisolving was also made possible by the foundation’s support.