Institute Overview

Study after study indicates that if humanity continues on its current path, a confluence of severe global stresses—environmental, epidemiological, economic, political, and technological—will cause devastating harm in coming years. These stresses will disrupt vital natural systems, cripple economies, deepen social divisions, and ultimately generate widespread societal breakdown and violence.

The Cascade Institute—founded in January, 2020—addresses this emerging crisis. It identifies high-leverage intervention points in cognitive, institutional, and technological systems that, if effectively exploited, could shift global civilization away from a path that leads to calamity and towards one that leads to fair and sustainable prosperity.

Its unabashedly bold goal is to trigger a fundamental, positive, and rapid change in humanity’s trajectory.

Non-Partisan Orientation

The Cascade Institute is non-partisan and ideologically non-aligned. It promotes fair and sustainable prosperity for all humanity, understood according to the criteria and norms set forth in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Institute engages in both pure and applied research, and its staff and researchers are exclusively responsible for deciding the scope and foci of this research. The Institute’s applied research—including training of practitioners in intervention strategies and field observation of intervention results—is targeted to further specific SDGs.