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Investment Strategy | Articles

6 Keys to Choosing the Right Outsourced CIO

Today, few OCIOs that serve nonprofits are total institutional partners. Six questions can help you find one who takes a holistic approach. Not long ago, the definition and scope of an “Outsourced...

Perspectives | Press Releases

2022 HEPI Report Released

Inflation for U.S. higher education institutions rises 5.2% in fiscal 2022; reaching highest annual rate since 6.0% in 2001 WILTON, Conn., December 15, 2022 – Data from the annual Commonfund Higher...

Outsourced Cio | Videos

Video Guide to Investment Outsourcing

Watch this short video on investment outsourcing by Anita Hariton as she discusses the growth of the outsourced-CIO industry and steps for institutions to take when implementing an outsourced CIO.

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Investment Strategy | Articles

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...
Responsible Investing | Articles

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...
Investment Strategy | Private Equity Insights

Making the Case for Investing in Natural Resources

The natural resources sector is often characterized as cyclical, as producers and service providers experience underlying exposure to and commensurate volatility of commodities in the oil and gas,...
Governance And Policy | Articles

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...
Investment Strategy | Articles

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...
Perspectives | Videos

The Absent Superpower

In this Commonfund Forum 2017 Spotlight, geopolitical strategist and author Peter Zeihan examines how the hard rules of geography are eroding the American commitment to free trade; how much of the...
Investment Strategy | Articles

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...
Perspectives | Articles

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...
Perspectives | Videos

No More Gatekeepers

In this Commonfund Forum Spotlight, founder of DonorsChoose.org Charles Best shares how as a 24-year-old teacher at a Bronx high school, he created a model of giving hailed as "the future of...
Perspectives | Videos

Monkeynomics

In this Commonfund Forum 2017 Spotlight, Dr. Laurie Santos demonstrates that primates have much to teach us about our own economic decision-making. Both monkeys and humans know a bargain when they...
Investment Strategy | Private Equity Insights

Venture Capital - Looking Forward and Upward

Beginning in the second half of 2015, there was growing caution that started to impact pricing and investment activity in early 2016. This valuation cooling period and subsequent shift in mindset...
Perspectives | Spotlight

Center for Natural Lands Management

These words—to protect, preserve and defend—come from the oath of office sworn by the President of the United States. At the Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM), they refer to an unwritten but...