Thinking Outside the Benchmark
Twenty years ago, Mark authored an article published in The Journal of Portfolio Management titled "Thinking Outside the Benchmark" to describe a new way of pension fund management. He concluded the...
Viewpoint | Top Concerns for Community Foundations: Donor-Advised Fund Regulations
Potential regulations on donor-advised funds (DAFs) and their effect on the philanthropic sector was the most-cited concern among community foundations in this year’s Council on...
Viewpoint | Top Concerns for Private Foundations: Financial Volatility and Target Returns
In this year’s Council on Foundations–Commonfund Study of Investment of Endowments for Private and Community Foundations® (CCSF; the “Study”) we asked a new question: What are the top two current...
Policy Areas Impacting Endowments and Foundations Today
Commonfund Institute aims to lift up and provide insight into how significant policy developments may impact nonprofit institutional investors. In the prior article, we covered implications of the...
Governance Lessons from Commonfund Benchmark Studies
Commonfund has been partnering to produce industry insights and thought leadership across the nonprofit institutional investor space for decades. Central to these efforts have been benchmark studies...
2023 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Report
It used to be, in the not-too-distant past, that a CEO could just focus on the four corners of her or his business plan without consideration for the broader societal impacts of that plan. Not so...
Viewpoint | The Yin and Yang of Risk and Return
The conundrum of risk and return is that you can’t have one without the other. The key is finding the right balance for your foundation.
Affirmative Action: Implications for Endowments, Foundations, and the Broader Industry
Affirmative action, a practice used since the 1960s to edge toward equity and address historical and ongoing injustice through higher education attainment, was struck down last month by the Supreme...
The Value of Collective Learning: Takeaways from the Commonfund Institute 2023 Investment Stewardship Academy
In June 2023, the Commonfund Institute hosted 36 nonprofit leaders on the campus of Yale University for our premier educational event – the Investment Stewardship Academy (ISA). Much has changed...
5 Policy Areas Impacting Endowments and Foundations Today
Commonfund Institute Federal Policy Roundup: Affirmative Action, Debt Ceiling and more. This article highlights some of the most pressing policy considerations for endowments and foundations,...
Presidential Veto Upholds Legitimacy of ESG Investing
In March 2023, President Biden acted to secure the U.S. Department of Labor Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Rule as foundational investment policy that permits fiduciaries of private...
How to Implement ESG at Your Institution
The following has been adapted from a presentation delivered at Commonfund Forum 2023. The presenters were Rachel Stavola Clivaz, Associate Director, and Anthony Peretore, Managing Director,...
Time to Reassess Your Cash Strategy
Bank safety amidst a confidence crisis It’s not hard to find sore spots in the economy. High rates of inflation have hit pocketbooks and balance sheets and initiated the steepest interest rate hikes...
Celebrate! 25 Years of NBOA: The Endowment Landscape
A deep dive into independent school endowment's trends FY2005-FY2022, including analysis of asset allocation, performance, spending and contributions, plus a perspective on future developments....
Taking a Regional Perspective
The Commonfund Benchmarks Study® of Independent Schools (CSIS) report provides and analysis of the investment and governance policies and practices of U.S. independent day and boarding schools. For...
Hedge Funds: Is Now Their Time to Shine?
Diversification may be underappreciated when both equity and fixed income allocations have been broadly positive. With both these allocations facing significant and potentially long-lasting...
Outsourcing: Writing Your RFP
Once an institution decides to pursue the outsourced CIO or investment office option, it usually leads to the creation of a request for proposal, or RFP. Considering that the outsourced model is a...
Seven Promising Practices for the Future of Higher Education
Even before the pandemic, the college/university business model was under scrutiny. With rising tuition costs outpacing living wages, and student debt burdens crippling students, institutions of...
Viewpoint: The Move in Marketable Alternative Strategies
In the 2021 Commonfund Benchmarks Study® of Independent schools we continue to see the allocation to marketable alternative strategies decline, raising questions about why and whether it will...
Viewpoint: The Short and Long of It
There’s a lot to consider in each annual Commonfund Benchmarks Study® of Independent Schools, e.g., asset allocation, spending, gifts and donations, responsible investing and more. This year is no...
Strategic Planning May Be Saving the Day for Cultural Institutions
Given the disruption to “normalcy” brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial justice issues that erupted in the U.S. in 2020 and continue today, some may say it has been a time of reckoning...
Aligning Endowments & Investments with Foundation Values
Reflections from the Council on Foundations' webinar The 2020 Council on Foundations-Commonfund Study of Investment of Endowments for Private and Community Foundations (CCSF) is the field’s most...
Commonfund Asset Management Announces Organization Changes
As a leading Outsourced CIO firm serving nonprofit organizations, we consistently re-evaluate our organization and processes looking for opportunities to improve how we work and serve our clients. To...
Diversifying Foundation Boards
The call for private and community foundation boards to embrace and demonstrate diversity at the senior leadership and board level has never been more urgent. Yet, with a growing base of research...
Viewpoint | The Climate for Responsible Investing is Changing
Climate change is a source of concern around the world—from environmental scientists to government policymakers to ordinary citizens. In a more figurative sense, the climate for responsible investing...
Viewpoint | The Ever-Evolving 80/20
On average over the past decade, independent schools participating in the Commonfund Benchmarks Study® of Independent Schools have maintained an asset allocation that stays within a few percentage...
Viewpoint | Meeting the Moment
Some foundations have responded to the call of mission by increasing spending in response to exceptional needs created by COVID-19. But there is a trade-off: the potential erosion of endowment value...
Fiscal Year-End and Mid-Year 2020 Market and Investment Review
As we enter the new fiscal year, and Commonfund’s 50th year of operations, we leave behind what will likely be remembered as one of the most challenging and memorable fiscal years for the...
Resource Management for College and Universities
William Massy has spent his entire career at the intersection of academia and administration, as a microeconomist; professor, dean and CFO at Stanford University; author; and now, an independent...
Increasing Giving During COVID-19: Thoughts for Philanthropy
The Council on Foundations has acted to support its members, their nonprofit partners, and the people and communities hit hardest by the impacts of COVID-19 by asking members to sign a pledge of...
Intergenerational Equity and Sustainable Investing
Intergenerational equity was defined by economist James Tobin in 1974. He wrote, “The trustees of endowed institutions are the guardians of the future against the claims of the present. Their task in...
Higher Ed in the Age of COVID-19
Commonfund convenes an expert panel to take on the short- and intermediate-term threats that higher education confronts in the face of a national emergency the likes of which have not been seen for...
How Can Trustees Achieve Intergenerational Equity in the Face of Rising Costs?
The Commonfund Higher Education Price Index® (HEPI) is an inflation index for colleges and universities. It has been calculated since 1983 and includes inflation data going back to 1961. Commonfund...
Viewpoint | Responsible Investing Practices: Evolution, Not Resolution
In recent years, responsible investing has received mounting levels of attention from all quarters of the investment management field, from institutional investors large and small to global asset...
Optimize Luck
"Instead of just optimizing for skill, why don’t we optimize for luck? " Optimize Luck originated in a group discussion I facilitated for the Investment Institute, a membership organization for...
Nonprofit Board Diversity = Effective Stewardship
Many institutions recognize the need for diversity and inclusion on their boards and investment committees. Diverse and inclusive boards can make more effective decisions, design and deliver...
Viewpoint: Actions Speak Louder than Data
In this Council on Foundations-Commonfund Study of Foundations viewpoint, it's about analyzing and interpreting the data we've collected. What do they tell us? What trends are emerging? How are...
Dynamic Workforce = Dynamic Portfolios
The Surprising Outcomes When Diverse Groups and Homogeneous Groups Tackle the Same Problem In late 2018, Commonfund established a Diversity Office with the objective of benefiting from the strengths...
The Global Economy and the Return of Risk
How to think about tariffs, deficits, valuations, leverage, growth and other issues What signals should institutions be mindful of as they make portfolio decisions in the current environment? A panel...
Viewpoint: Looking Back, Moving Forward - A Decade of Insight from CSIS
Fiscal 2009 was an epochal year. In March, the stock market decline wrought by the financial crisis and Great Recession reached its nadir as investors sensed the worst had passed. With the turn in...
Viewpoint: The Long of It
Endowments, like the organizations they support, are generally intended to operate in perpetuity. To accomplish this goal, those responsible for endowments—trustees or directors—make decisions based...
Viewpoint: The Gift of (Relative) Calm
The calamities known as the financial crisis and Great Recession are now a decade in the past. But far from fading into history, the memories remain fresh. And we are reminded of those days regularly...
Diversity and Emerging Managers
The benefits of diversity are widely recognized in the work place and among educational institutions and other nonprofits. Yet, the concept of investment management firms that are minority owned and...
Inflation is Expected to Rise. How Can Investors Protect Portfolios?
In March, capital markets entered their tenth year of post-crisis recovery. For diversified portfolios, these have been some of the most profitable times, characterized by strong returns, positive...
Should Investors Be Concerned with ESG Investing
The subject of ESG, or investing in accord with environmental, social and governance principles, arose in several sessions at Commonfund Forum 2018. One session, in particular, was devoted to the...
Viewpoint: Being Objective
Every year, the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments® (NCSE) reports new data—on investment returns, asset allocation, risk management, donations and gifts, and much more. But some data points are...
Nonprofit Board Governance Best Practices
Since our founding in 1971, a core element of the Commonfund mission has been to provide insights on a broad range of governance, policy and investment challenges. An engaged governing board is...
Hedge Fund Land: An Expensive Amusement Park?
In a series of articles, we have addressed two recent investment “fatigues” experienced by institutional investors: Active vs. Passive; and Global (ACWI) vs. US benchmarks. In this article, we tackle...
Viewpoint: Responsible Investing for Foundations
Introduction In recent years, growing attention has been paid to the use by endowed institutions of so-called responsible investing practices. The three main practices — environmental, social and...
Not So Free: Implications of New York’s Excelsior Scholarships
Key Insights While opening opportunity to many New York families, the recently enacted Excelsior Scholarship Program will likely stress the financial resources of small private colleges and...
The Misperception of Illiquid Investments
With many market participants expecting low nominal returns across traditional asset classes in the coming years, the challenge of structuring a portfolio to achieve CPI +5%, or long-term purchasing...
CIO Roundtable: Is the Endowment Model a Crowded Trade?
Stuck in the past or ever-evolving? The endowment model gets a hard look eight years into the current market cycle. With core tenets of the endowment model seemingly under stress for the last several...
Viewpoint: Counting the Cost
How much does investment management cost? Fiduciaries, donors and stakeholders at endowed institutions have a strong interest in finding a good answer to this question, particularly in this era of...
Viewpoint: A Firmer Foundation
How long is the long term? A year ago, private and community foundations appeared to many observers to have recovered from the losses suffered in the 2008–09 global financial crisis. Double-digit...
Active Management Fatigue and What to Do About It
Active management has struggled for several years, raising questions about whether active management can ever outperform again. Traditional active manager style tilts, like value and size, have...
What’s Next for Cash Investors?
In the static low-rate environment of recent years, it seemed as though there was no “what’s next” for cash. Today, that has changed, as there are major forces reshaping the regulatory and interest...
Ideas for Next Gen Energy Investing
Advances in alternative energy technologies promise to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. Largely, however, they remain just that—a promise. So, where are the opportunities to invest in...
Unhedged Commentary: The $3 Trillion Question
Reprinted from Institutional Investor’s Alpha Spring 2016 issue The growth of the hedge fund industry over the past decade has been tremendous, with more and more institutional and retail investors...
The Big Picture: Integrating Investments, Finance and Development
Most things function a lot better when all the moving parts work together—nonprofit institutions included. The synergies afforded by collaboration across organizational boundaries may be the most...
Rethinking Risk and Diversification
Asset allocation is still the foundation on which better risk-adjusted returns are built. But asset allocation has changed, along with all the associated tools for pursuing return and managing risk....
Viewpoint: Seven Years On
How long is the long term? A year ago, endowments appeared to many observers to have recovered from the losses suffered in the 2008-09 global financial crisis. Double-digit investment returns had...
Top Five Questions of Nonprofit Fiduciaries
The turbulent start to the New Year has led governing boards, investment committees and staff to question what’s next for the markets and what they should do about it. Below are the top five concerns...
Impact Investing: Balancing the Best of Responsibility & Opportunity
Impact investing is showing growth around the world. According to the most recent J.P. Morgan/Global Impact Investing Network Impact Investor Survey, the number of institutional investors engaging in...
Viewpoint: Changing Our Minds
It is often said that we live in a world of change, but it is surprising how slowly that change can occur. Seven years after the onset of the Great Recession, many business school students are still...
Multi-Asset Investing: Form Follows Function
The design axiom captures the purpose of multi-asset investing Interest in multi-asset investing is growing and the inflows confirm it: Institutional assets committed to multi-asset investing are...
Smart money, crowded trades?
For investors building multi-manager portfolios, a look at an alternative hedge fund beta. Approaches to stock selection vary widely across the hedge fund universe, even among managers practicing the...
Greenhouse Effect
Investment returns of less well-diversified portfolios have flourished in the accommodative market environment created by central banks. But what will happen when rates rise? In the last five years,...
Working capital: challenge and opportunity
On campus, the thinking about operating asset management is changing with the times. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession, liquidity was the primary concern on university...
Evolving Challenges in Nonprofit Governance
Commonfund recently convened an expert panel moderated by Myra Drucker (standing, left), Chair of the Board, TrustedPeer Inc. and former chair of the Commonfund Board of Trustees. The roundtable...
ESG: Principles for Responsible Investment
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors are a topic for active discussion in board rooms. Here’s an update on Commonfund’s thoughts and actions and how ESG may relate to you. In general,...
Nonstop Nonprofit-Dedicated OCIO
Why an OCIO that's dedicated to serving nonprofits may be preferable to a general practitioner As the OCIO model has evolved and expanded in recent years, a number of financial providers have entered...
Risk: The Fuel that Generates Portfolio Returns
Risk management: the process of harnessing risk in pursuit of better investment returns In a broad sense, how should nonprofit institutional investors think about investment risk and risk management?...
Viewpoint: A Different Kind of Climate Change
How have cultural, religious and social service institutions’ investment portfolios changed in response to the financial and market environment that has prevailed over the last several years? While...
10-Point Fiduciary Checklist: Get Governance Right
Follow this checklist and you'll be on your way… For nonprofit organizations of all kinds, the regulatory and legislative landscape continues to become more rigorous—which should not come as a...
ESG and Your Institution: Doing Well by Doing Good
Investing according to environmental, social and governance principles is maturing into a distinct discipline. Robust research results dispute the conventional wisdom about performance trade-offs. If...
Tour de World: Global Equity Investing Now