Forum 2024 Key Statistics [Infographic]
Commonfund recently hosted its 26th annual Commonfund Forum, March 10th-12th, in Orlando, Florida. The event brought together institutional investors to engage in a three-day conference to explore...
Celebrating Black History Month: A Resource Guide
Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Also known as African American History Month, the...
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: A Resource Guide
National Hispanic Heritage Month (Spanish: Mes Nacional de la Herencia Hispana) is an annual celebration commemorating the history, contributions, and culture of U.S. Latino and Hispanic communities....
Celebrating Pride Month: A Resource Guide
Pride month is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBT+) as a social group. Pride as opposed to shame...
Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month got its start as a congressional bill, inspired by Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month, with the mission of bringing attention to the...
Celebrating Women's History Month
Women's History Month 2023 | Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories Women’s History Month is an annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary...
Forum 2023 Key Statistics [Infographic]
Commonfund recently hosted its 25th annual Commonfund Forum, February 13-15th, in Boca Raton, Florida. The event brought together institutional investors to engage in a three-day conference to...
Diversity and Inclusion: Ways to Make a Change
Throughout American history, discrimination has not only been ever present, but era-defining. In each of those eras, however, there have been pivotal moments where activists organized, made...
Celebrating Native American Heritage Month: A Resource Guide
Commonfund, in conjunction with our Native American Heritage Month subcommittee, has created a resource guide to help all of us celebrate the contributions of Native Americans and Indigenous people...
In Remembrance: Laurance (Laurie) R. Hoagland, Jr.
The Commonfund community was saddened to learn of the recent passing of Laurie Hoagland. Laurie served as a member of the Commonfund Board from 2000-2012 and was Board Chair from 2010-2012.
Hitting the Hot Buttons: Investing for the Next 2 to 4 Years
Commonfund Forum 2022 featured an expert panel representing diverse perspectives to probe beyond the headline-grabbing news that has been driving financial markets in recent months. The accompanying...
Celebrating and Honoring Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
On January 17, 2022, the nation will celebrate the legacy and leadership of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King—a graduate of Morehouse College—was a Baptist minister, a peace seeking civil...
In Remembrance: Verne O. Sedlacek
A Gentle Giant The Commonfund community was shocked and saddened this week by the news of the sudden passing of our former President and CEO, Verne Sedlacek at the age of 67.
Commonfund Celebrates 50 Years of Service
On July 1st, 1971, The Common Fund for Nonprofit Organizations commenced operations with a $2.8 million grant from the Ford Foundation under the leadership of President George Keane and the Board of...
In Memoriam: George F. Keane
George F. Keane, 91, of 7408 Eaton Court, Sarasota, FL, founder of The Common Fund, and noted philanthropic investment strategist, passed away Thursday, May 20, 2021, peacefully in the Spring Meadows...
Commonfund Trustee, Dr. David A. Thomas, Wins 62nd Annual HBR McKinsey Award
Commonfund's Trustee, Dr. David A. Thomas, wins the 62nd Annual HBR McKinsey Award, for co-authoring the article titled "Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case." The...
How Your Organization Can Nurture Innovation While Balancing Risk
The theme for Commonfund Forum 2021 was “Transformation.” The objective of the agenda was to deliver timely, useful content on core subjects related to nonprofit endowment and financial management...
From Generosity to Justice | Observations from the President of Ford Foundation
The theme for Commonfund Forum 2021 was “Transformation.” The objective of the agenda was to deliver timely, useful content on core subjects related to nonprofit endowment and financial management...
Investing in Racial Equity: A Primer for University & College Endowments
Commonfund and Commonfund Institute are very happy to contribute to the new report from Intentional Endowments Network (IEN), “Investing in Racial Equity: A Primer for University & College...
Balancing Risk and Return
Risk surrounds us, and for investment fiduciaries it is inescapable if meaningful real returns are to be sought. While risk and return constitute the axes upon which investment portfolios are built,...
In Remembrance
The senseless killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and most recently, George Floyd have once again brought the scourge of racism to the forefront of our nation’s conscience. For many Americans,...
Taking a Fresh Look at Spending Models
Investors have limited control over the returns their portfolios generate. They have more control over their spending. That doesn’t make it easy. Compared to some earlier periods, volatility in the...
A sit-down with Richard Fisher
As a follow-on to the Commonfund Forum 2019 panel discussion, The Global Economy and the Return of Risk, Richard Fisher, former President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, further...
Identifying an “E” Factor
Over the past year the Commonfund investment teams have undertaken research to identify and isolate a new factor associated with the environmental sustainability of a stock (or a portfolio of...
A Cost-Effective Approach to Hedge Fund Allocations: Part 2
Let’s start with a quick recap of Part 1 of this story, which can be boiled down to three main points: Investors often spend too much for market beta, paying “2 and 20” for hedge funds that deliver...
A Cost-Effective Approach to Hedge Fund Allocations: Part 1
At the risk of beating a dead horse, hedge funds are not an asset class. This is especially true in the way in which Commonfund selects and constructs its hedge fund portfolios: focusing...
Equity Portfolio Construction – Through a Risk Factor Lens
At Commonfund, we aim to build multi-manager, active risk equity portfolios with a clear objective of consistent outperformance versus passive policy benchmarks. Our approach is to take intentional...
How Much Beta is in Your Equity Portfolio?
Leveling the Field in the “Tug of War” Between Active and Passive… Active Equity Manager Universal Objective: Outperform the Passive Alternative It’s undeniable that every active equity manager’s...
Long-Term Trends for Long-Term Investors
Nonprofit institutions have the distinct advantage of having the longest time horizon of any investors – often perpetuity. This affords an opportunity to consider investments based on secular trends...
What do the Cable Television and Hedge Fund Industries Have in Common?
These industries may seem an odd pairing, but both are in the midst of a disruption-led, industry-wide rationalization process. The two industries share in common a historically evolved “bundling”...
Private Credit Opportunities – Direct Lending to U.S. Middle Market Companies
Much has been made of the challenges endowment, foundation and nonprofit investors face in achieving a CPI+ five percent return target. One way to improve the probability of attaining this goal is to...
A False Sense of Diversification?
As we have undergone the process of re-underwriting all of Commonfund’s equity managers and funds over the last 6 months, we have tackled anew the age old question of how many funds does one...
Bridging the Gap: Carbon and Fiduciary Responsibility
Most institutional investor discussions and actions regarding global warming have been at two ends of the spectrum: either divest from fossil fuels entirely or remain fully invested. A better...
Six Key Questions To Ask OCIO Providers
“Outsourced CIO” (or OCIO) is a term that might not be familiar to many. In the past it has been defined as a traditional consulting model in which the process of interviewing potential investment...
Defining Risk For Your Organization
Merriam-Webster’s defines risk as the “possibility of loss or injury.” The financial profession — borrowing from Modern Portfolio Theory — uses the standard deviation of a portfolio’s returns to...
What is ESG Investing?
Generally speaking, Environmental Social and Governance, or ESG for short, is used to describe a group of characteristics that can have a material impact on the long-term success of a company and,...
The Economic Equation: Solving for the Unknowns