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...
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,...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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: 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Top Five Questions of Nonprofit Fiduciaries