Resilience Toolbox

Elephant Builder  

The Elephant Builder is Bellwether Collaboratory’s collaborative modeling tool for multi-stakeholder planning processes. Governments and nonprofits use the Elephant Builder to engage experts and community members in an authentically inclusive manner, as stakeholders build and analyze causal models of the community systems of interest.

The modeling process requires little training and can accommodate stakeholders across a broad range of technical sophistication and confidence: models are built node by node, the Elephant Builder asking simple cause-and-effect questions. Once the model is completed, the Elephant Builder guides stakeholders through the identification of causal pathways, system vulnerabilities, feedback loops, and recommended actions. Users can also parameterize the model with quantitative variable-states and probabilistic causal relationships, allowing the Elephant Builder to act as an AI-backed scenario-testing tool.

The Elephant Builder has been used to examine critical lifeline interdependencies in Los Angeles (Susanne Moser Research and Consulting and U.S. Geological Survey), food systems in New York state (SUNY Albany School of Public Health), and community resilience in Larimer County, Colorado (Larimer County Office of Emergency Management).

Developed by
Bellweather Collaboratory