About Us

Three Cairns Group is a philanthropic investment firm focused on turning climate ambition into lasting impact.

Meet Our Team 

What we do

We bring together the right people, partnerships, and resources to help promising efforts take root and scale.

Three Cairns Group works across four areas: Giving & Impact, Strategic Initiatives, Investments, and Emerging Opportunities. We bring deep listening, rigorous analysis, and long-term relationship-building to every challenge, staying close to execution and working alongside partners. We measure success by whether ideas become actionable, efforts become scalable, institutions become stronger, and people’s lives improve.

Our Mission

We identify opportunities to accelerate climate progress and strengthen the conditions for lasting impact at scale.

Our Vision

Climate action expands opportunity, strengthens communities, and ensures a sustainable future for everyone.

Our Values

Decarbonizing the planet and creating sustainable economies requires urgent, thoughtful and collaborative action.

We bring analytical rigor and deep relationships to every challenge because durable progress depends on both.

We listen first and work alongside partners, communities, and leaders to understand what people and systems need to succeed.

We invest our time, expertise, networks, and capital where they can unlock opportunity and accelerate change.

Real Impact

We mobilize catalytic capital, strengthen market infrastructure, expand climate talent, and build enduring organizations that accelerate climate progress.

$825M

climate investment platform

Co-founded and incubated Allied Climate Partners, helping launch an estimated $825 million climate investment platform that unlocks private capital for locally managed cleanenergy funds.

~22%

less tailpipe pollution

Partnered to advance New York City's congestion pricing program, reducing traffic, generating nearly $1 billion annually for public transit, and cutting tailpipe pollution by ~22% in its first six months.

235

climate tech companies launched

Supported Activate fellows who launched 235 climate technology companies, raised more than $4 billion in follow-on funding, and created more than 3,000 high-quality climate and clean energy jobs.

Our Work

Three Cairns Group works where opportunity, talent, resources, and momentum already exist, but the pathways needed to connect and scale them do not.

We strengthen partnerships, support leaders and organizations, deploy philanthropic capital, and help turn promising efforts into meaningful impact. Our work spans climate change, democracy, and select other issues where stronger institutions, collaboration, and leadership can accelerate progress.

Strategic Initiatives

We design, launch, and strengthen initiatives that make information more actionable, connect capital and talent to high-impact opportunities, and build the partnerships and alignment needed to unlock progress.

Giving & Impact

Through investments in policy advocacy, talent, communications, and strategic initiatives, we advance clean, affordable energy, durable emissions reductions, healthier and more resilient communities, and shared wellbeing.

Investments

We make direct investments in businesses and commitments to investment funds focused on innovating and scaling climate solutions, and very selectively outside of these core segments.

Emerging Opportunities

We extend our approach into areas beyond climate change where leadership, trusted information, coordination, and institutional resilience are critical.