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Navigate Now: Takeaways from Commonfund Forum 2026
Commonfund Forum 2026, held in Hollywood, FL, brought together registrants from some 263 institutions with more than $238 billion in assets representing 38 states, 2 territories, and 3 foreign...
Commonfund Study of Independent Schools Released for FY2025
Gains Amid Uncertainty: Independent Schools Report 11.5% Return on Endowment Assets for FY2025; 10-Year average returns rise to 7.7% New Gifts to Endowments Rebound, Use of OCIO Increased Norwalk,... Learn More
Infinite Challenges, Endless Opportunities, Finite Resources
Board members, trustees and others that have oversight of endowed portfolios have well-documented fiduciary duties that govern how they carry out those responsibilities. In times of relative calm,...
Tools for Creating Effective Strategic Policy
Commonfund has worked with nonprofit investors for 50 years. Over that time, we have developed a set of proprietary tools and data to assist boards and investment committees in their quest to create...
Promoting Gender Equity in Leadership Roles
Dr. Kellie A. McElhaney is on faculty as a Distinguished Teaching Fellow and the Founding Director of the Center for Equity, Gender and Inclusion (EGAL) at the Haas School of Business at the...
Allocating to Illiquid Investments
Stewards of endowments have long been advised that allocating to illiquid investments is critical to achieving long-term returns. Rather than trust conventional wisdom, Commonfund conducted 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...
Stellex Capital Management
In celebration of Black History Month, Commonfund Institute Executive Director, George Suttles, and Commonfund Director, Nicole Melwood, interview Ray Whiteman, Managing Partner and co-Founder of...
Exploring Foundations’ Response to COVID-19
Earlier in February at the 2021 Yale Philanthropy Conference, our own George Suttles, Executive Director of Commonfund Institute hosted a panel which included Tim Yates, President and CEO of...
The Tech Effect and Direct Venture Growth Investing
The venture growth and late stage venture capital (“VC”) market has matured over the last 10 years, and direct investing has emerged as an attractive strategy for Limited Partners (“LPs”) to...
2021 Private Markets Investor Sentiment Survey
Institutional investors continue to increase allocations to private strategies. Commonfund Capital’s fourth annual private markets investor sentiment survey shows trends continue despite the pandemic...
Implications of Increased Spending for Foundations
In this Commonfund Xchange, Commonfund Institute Executive Director, George Suttles, moderated a discussion with two leading practitioners: Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation Chief Finance and...
How to Measure Private Equity Investments
Private capital investors use a particular set of quantitative and qualitative measures to assess performance. While the standard benchmarks used for marketable securities are sometimes applied to...
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...
Commonfund OCIO Point of View