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Investment Strategy | Articles

Challenges of Nonprofit Healthcare Organizations and Endowment Management

Facing cost pressures and a new regulatory regime, healthcare organizations — especially those in the small and mid-sized range — should consider adopting the principles of the endowment model....
Perspectives | Press Releases

2023 HEPI Report Released

Inflation for U.S. Higher Education Institutions Rises 4.0% in Fiscal 2023, Down from Fiscal 2022 Rate WILTON, Conn., December 13, 2023 – Data from the annual Commonfund Higher Education Price Index®...
Perspectives | Videos

CIO Roundtable

Commonfund hosted its annual Commonfund Forum, March 10-12th, in Orlando, Florida. The agenda included a range of sessions on relevant topics for institutional investors. This Forum Spotlight...

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Investment Strategy | Insights Blog

How Nonprofits Eliminate the Noise to Strategically Achieve Long-Term Success

Commonfund has been partnering with boards and investment committees to design and implement investment structures that support and maintain intergenerational equity, the purchasing power of their... Learn More
Governance And Policy | Articles

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...
Governance And Policy | Articles

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...
Private Equity | Private Equity Insights

What’s the Difference? Time-Weighted Return vs. Internal Rate of Return

Investors often ask about the difference between time-weighted return (“TWR”) and internal rate of return (“IRR”). In general, TWR is used by the investment industry to measure the performance of...
Perspectives | Spotlight

Northampton Community College Foundation

The dictionary defines a foundation as “an underlying base or support.” Of course, there’s another type of foundation, defined as “funds given for the support of an institution.” Northampton...
Outsourced Cio | White Papers

Outsourced Investment Management: An Overview for Decision Makers

An institution’s decision to work with an OCIO provider will likely depend on several factors. Learn more on on Outsourced Investment Management by...
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...