A Letter From Prime’s CEO on Her Sabbatical
Dear friends and colleagues,
Like many of you, I’ve been working continuously since I was 14 years old. Joyfully, I’ve had access to jobs that have supported climate solutions with charitable capital since I was 18—it is my calling. I’m deeply grateful to the Chesonis Family Foundation, the Blue Moon Fund, MIT Systems Engineering Division - especially Professor Dame Fiona Murray and the Betsy & Jesse Fink Family Foundation for setting me on this path and making Prime possible.
Over the past 13 years, we’ve built Prime around values that matter deeply to me: tenacity, humility, and care. These core values guide our work to drive meaningful change within the complex systems shaping the climate crisis. To embody those values, I will be on sabbatical from May 13 through September 27, with full confidence in the strength of our team and the organization we’ve built together.
During this time, our COO, Julie Remmelts, will serve as Interim Executive Lead, comprising our senior leadership team alongside Dr. Anna Goldstein and Keri Browder. Their leadership is the result of years of intentional investment in building a durable, distributed organization, and it’s what makes the sabbatical possible.
The timing comes amid real momentum for Prime. To date, Prime has mobilized $325M in catalytic capital, including $104M through us as a nonprofit partner, and unlocked $2.8B in external investment across 52 companies and 6 funds. Looking ahead, we aim to transact at least $500M in catalytic capital through Prime as a nonprofit and crowd in $14B of co- and follow-on investment into our high-impact holdings by 2033.
These results build on more than a decade of work. From 2014 through 2023, with the support of more than 200 courageous philanthropic partners, Prime has helped demonstrate that catalytic capital can unlock high-impact, early-stage climate solutions. A 2026 independent assessment put it simply: “catalytic capital as an investment strategy was born by and through Prime’s practice.”
And as the field evolves, so are we. Prime is in the midst of building our internal infrastructure so that, by early 2027, we will be positioned to support philanthropists at every stage of their journey, from early exploration to confident deployment of charitable capital toward catalytic investments in climate.
Since March 2025, we’ve been quietly piloting new pathways for philanthropists to participate in catalytic investment opportunities in partnership with Prime. Our expansion intends to continue lowering barriers for philanthropists and accelerate the flow of capital to high-impact climate solutions. It reflects our many years of learning-by-doing. There are now many investment opportunities that are eligible and deserving of charitable capital that we did not co-create at Prime. As a result, philanthropists will be able to rely on our team’s expertise to move confidently from intention to climate action across many catalytic opportunities.
I’m excited for what’s ahead and hope you’ll be part of it.
I will be fully unreachable on LinkedIn, Slack, and email from May 4 through September 27. If you need to find me, you’ll have to swim across Canandaigua Lake and try to convince my children to let you through. I hope you will reach out to our Chief Growth Officer, Keri Browder, at keri@primecoalition.org, to learn more about how you can join Prime and our philanthropic partners in supporting high-priority catalytic investments in climate.
With gratitude,
Sarah Kearney
CEO, Prime Coalition
