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Investment Strategy | Articles

Mind the Gap: The Strategic Risk of Skipping a Vintage in Private Equity

Private equity (inclusive of buyouts, growth equity, and venture capital) remains a compelling long-term asset class, but recent periods of muted distributions and below-average returns have created...

Perspectives | Press Releases

2025 HEPI Report Released

Inflation for U.S. Higher Education Institutions Rises 3.6% in Fiscal 2025, Up from Fiscal 2024 Rate Norwalk, Conn., December 11, 2025 – Data from the annual Higher Education Price Index® (HEPI) show...

Investment Strategy | Videos

Chief Investment Officers Share Their Thoughts at Forum 2025

Commonfund hosted its annual Commonfund Forum 2025, March 9-11th, in Orlando, Florida. The agenda included a range of sessions on relevant topics for institutional investors. This Forum Spotlight...

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Governance And Policy | Videos

Impact and Values-Aligned Investing - Commonfund Coffee Talk

IMpact and Values-aligned investing The second session in our Commonfund Coffee Talk series focuses on the opportunities that foundations have in the impact and values-aligned investing spaces....
Governance And Policy | Videos

The State of Private and Community Foundations - Commonfund Coffee Talk

The State of Private and Community Foundations Our 2022 Commonfund Coffee Talk series kicked off with a focus on the challenges facing private and community foundations, what they are doing to...
Governance And Policy | Insights Blog

Excellent Boards Are Made, Not Born

Boards that are exemplary for their adherence to best governance practices have certain identifiable traits. But this is no accident—they have taken steps to elevate their practices and maintain them...
Perspectives | Insights Blog

Get Cozy This Winter with One of Our Favorite Books!

Commonfund Institute is excited to share our most recent picks for our annual winter reading list, gathered from our Commonfund colleagues. We send you our warmest wishes for the holidays and can’t...
Investment Strategy | Insights Blog

Supply Chains Take a Wild Ride

In 2021, the word was transitory. This described the expectations of Fed officials and many other prognosticators that elevated inflation would quickly return to the pre-COVID level of at or around 2...
Investment Strategy | Insights Blog

Is Spending Policy the Other “Free Lunch” in Investing?

We believe spending policy not only should influence strategic asset allocation but should be thought of as the other "free lunch" of long-term endowment investing alongside diversification.
Diversity | Insights Blog

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...
Outsourced Cio | Videos

Video Guide to Investment Outsourcing

One critical decision nonprofit boards continue to face is how best to implement an investment policy. They typically face three options for doing so.
Governance And Policy | Articles

Writing an Outsourced CIO 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 OCIO model is a...
Governance And Policy | Insights Blog

Why Governance Matters to ESG

According to the Financial Times “Investing within an ESG framework is now the fastest-growing segment of the asset management industry.” In line with this growth is the increasing number of...
Investment Strategy | Insights Blog

Real Estate Takes a Hit from the Fed

In this chart of the month, it is commonly cited that monetary policy tightening has a lagged impact on economic activity. However, as the Federal Reserve drives the cost of capital higher, the...
Investment Strategy | Insights Blog

Chart of the Month | The Shape of Inflation

The Consumer Price Index continues to surprise central bankers, commentators, and market participants alike. The latest headline reading of 8.2 percent, which reflects year-over-year price increases...