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Higher Ed in 2025: Top 5 Business Concerns and How Institutions Can Respond
For the past four years, NACUBO has surveyed chief business officers and other financial and administrative professionals about the challenges that confront them—and how they are working to support...
Health Conversion Foundations: Preserving Community Health in a Changing Landscape
In the evolving terrain of American healthcare, health conversion foundations, also known as health legacy foundations, have emerged as powerful stewards of community well-being. These philanthropic... Learn More
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...
Impact Investing: Balancing the Best of Responsibility & Opportunity
Impact investing is showing growth around the world. According to the most recent J.P. Morgan/Global Impact Investing Network Impact Investor Survey, the number of institutional investors engaging in...
Viewpoint: Changing Our Minds
It is often said that we live in a world of change, but it is surprising how slowly that change can occur. Seven years after the onset of the Great Recession, many business school students are still...
Multi-Asset Investing: Form Follows Function
The design axiom captures the purpose of multi-asset investing Interest in multi-asset investing is growing and the inflows confirm it: Institutional assets committed to multi-asset investing are...
Global private equity: what and why
What and Why An article in the previous issue of Insight sought to discern the difference between perception and reality in private equity investing generally, and included a companion article...
Smart money, crowded trades?
For investors building multi-manager portfolios, a look at an alternative hedge fund beta. Approaches to stock selection vary widely across the hedge fund universe, even among managers practicing the...
Greenhouse Effect
Investment returns of less well-diversified portfolios have flourished in the accommodative market environment created by central banks. But what will happen when rates rise? In the last five years,...
Working capital: challenge and opportunity
On campus, the thinking about operating asset management is changing with the times. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession, liquidity was the primary concern on university...
Evolving Challenges in Nonprofit Governance
Commonfund recently convened an expert panel moderated by Myra Drucker (standing, left), Chair of the Board, TrustedPeer Inc. and former chair of the Commonfund Board of Trustees. The roundtable...
ESG: Principles for Responsible Investment
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors are a topic for active discussion in board rooms. Here’s an update on Commonfund’s thoughts and actions and how ESG may relate to you. In general,...
Private Equity: Perception and Reality
For a variety of reasons, some investors believe that private equity may have lost its edge as a key allocation for their portfolios. This perception may overlook reality. A closer examination...
Top Five Questions of Nonprofit Fiduciaries