Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I’m back to work at Prime after a wonderful summer sabbatical. Thank you for your patience as I’m getting back up to speed. This summer, I spent time with friends and family, took each of my three kids on a one-on-one Mom Adventure, learned pickleball and American mahjong, played pickup basketball, and remembered the joy of having time to devote to the people I love. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity.
Two things I noticed while outside my usual routines
The cautionary tale of unbridled market forces
Parents everywhere are worried about AI, smartphones, and children’s learning. Evidence increasingly suggests that learning outcomes are suffering, while parents, educators, schools, and policymakers struggle to keep pace with technology’s rapid deployment. It’s a sobering reminder that market-driven innovation, left unchecked, can harm the public good, while protecting the public good requires deliberate, assertive action and governance guardrails.
The inescapability of climate change
I proactively tried not to think about climate change this summer, but it found me anyway.
In my hometown, our beloved Canandaigua Lake is experiencing recurrent algae blooms that threaten recreational and municipal use. In West Virginia’s New River Gorge, a rafting trip with my 10-year-old son doubled in length after severe flooding disrupted river access. Our guide, who has spent more than 20 years on the river, described significant warming, increasingly disruptive rainfall, and his reluctance to discuss climate change in a region where the subject can be politically fraught.
Joe and Sarah Kearney white water rafting in New River Gorge, WV (August 2026)
In the Adirondack Mountains, where my 8-year-old and I went kayaking and hiking, the person who prepped our cabin before our arrival mentioned (without prompting) how the Fulton Chain of Lakes is experiencing fewer and less consistent periods of ice cover, disrupting winter traditions like ice fishing and snowmobiling that have long defined the region’s culture and supported its seasonal economy.
People are experiencing the consequences of climate change, often don’t want to talk about it, and do not feel equipped to do much about it.
While I rested, the field continued to advance
While I was away, “hyperscaler” became dinner-table vocabulary, the nonprofit sector buzzed about the potential charitable wealth generated by AI, OpenAI solved math problems that had stumped mathematicians for generations, and Google and Constellation announced a deal backed by more than $4.3 billion in investment to increase electricity output from existing nuclear reactors to help meet growing demand.
Prime’s mandate has never felt more urgent: to identify the barriers holding back climate progress and partner with philanthropists and impact-prioritizing investors to fund the highest-potential solutions, building bridges for markets to follow. As demand for reliable, carbon-free power surges, we must mobilize catalytic capital before higher-emissions pathways become entrenched.
Our team stayed focused and delivered meaningful progress this summer:
We’re on track to exceed our 2026 target of crowding $3 billion of external capital into Prime and Prime-built vehicles. Every $1 deployed by Prime has now translated into $28 for untapped climate solutions.
We’ve exceeded our 2026 target for engagement with Prime’s knowledge-sharing resources, now serving more than 21,000 users.
We’re on track to launch our expanded catalytic investing strategy in Q1 2027.
We’re on track to deploy $500 million of cumulative catalytic capital by 2033.
I could not be prouder of our team’s hard work and the way they express our shared values: humility, tenacity, and care. My sabbatical also helped me reflect on the leadership and work ethic I want to cultivate: steady, deliberate, and devoted to what matters most. I’ll spend the rest of the year listening, getting back up to speed, and deepening my own understanding of Prime’s expanded strategy. I look forward to sharing much more about that with you in the new year.
In the face of wicked problems that markets alone may deepen, but that markets must help solve, I keep returning to Václav Havel’s words: “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
With gratitude and renewed resolve,
Sarah
