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Diversity | Articles

Affirmative Action: Implications for Endowments, Foundations, and the Broader Industry

Affirmative action, a practice used since the 1960s to edge toward equity and address historical and ongoing injustice through higher education attainment, was struck down last month by the Supreme...

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

FY2022 Council on Foundations-Commonfund Study of Foundations Highlights

In a recent webinar, Commonfund Institute and the Council on Foundations reviewed the highlights from the 2022 Council on Foundations-Commonfund Study of Foundations.

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Governance And Policy | Articles

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...
Perspectives | Spotlight

The William Penn Foundation

Fast Philly facts: The city is the site of the first library, hospital, medical school, stock exchange and zoo in the U.S. It’s the only World Heritage City in the U.S. William Penn founded the city...
Investment Strategy | Articles

Active Management Fatigue and What to Do About It

Active management has struggled for several years, raising questions about whether active management can ever outperform again. Traditional active manager style tilts, like value and size, have...
Commonfund Forum | Articles

What’s Next for Cash Investors?

In the static low-rate environment of recent years, it seemed as though there was no “what’s next” for cash. Today, that has changed, as there are major forces reshaping the regulatory and interest...
Investment Strategy | Articles

Ideas for Next Gen Energy Investing

Advances in alternative energy technologies promise to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. Largely, however, they remain just that—a promise. So, where are the opportunities to invest in...
Investment Strategy | Articles

Unhedged Commentary: The $3 Trillion Question

Reprinted from Institutional Investor’s Alpha Spring 2016 issue The growth of the hedge fund industry over the past decade has been tremendous, with more and more institutional and retail investors...
Investment Strategy | Articles

The Big Picture: Integrating Investments, Finance and Development

Most things function a lot better when all the moving parts work together—nonprofit institutions included. The synergies afforded by collaboration across organizational boundaries may be the most...
Investment Strategy | Private Equity Insights

Asset Allocation with Private Equity

Reprinted from Volume 17, Number 1, 2016 of The Journal of Investment Consulting by Mark J.P. Anson Private assets such as private equity and venture capital have long been a thorn in the side of...
Investment Strategy | Private Equity Insights

Emerging Markets: Balancing Risk and Reward

Investors poured $2 trillion into emerging economies between 2009 and 2014. Then prices for a basket of commodities fell—dragging crude oil down to levels not seen in a decade and dashing investors’...
Investment Strategy | Articles

Rethinking Risk and Diversification

Asset allocation is still the foundation on which better risk-adjusted returns are built. But asset allocation has changed, along with all the associated tools for pursuing return and managing risk....
Perspectives | Videos

The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined

Sal Khan is the founder of the Khan Academy, a nonprofit with the mission of providing free, high-quality education to “anyone, anywhere” in the world. A former hedge fund analyst with degrees from...
Perspectives | Articles

Viewpoint: Seven Years On

How long is the long term? A year ago, endowments appeared to many observers to have recovered from the losses suffered in the 2008-09 global financial crisis. Double-digit investment returns had...