Research Center
Select a Topic:
.svg){kind=icon}
A Closer Look at Long-term Returns
In the annual Council on Foundations-Commonfund Study of Investment of Endowments for Private and Community Foundations® (CCSF; the "Study") data was collected on longer-term returns for the first...
Higher Education Price Index Forecast August 2025
According to Commonfund Institute's latest update, the HEPI forecasts a 3.7 percent inflation rate for U.S. colleges and universities in fiscal year 2025. The latest forecast, based on data through... Learn More
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...