Founded in 1971, Commonfund is an institutional asset manager with roughly $30 billion in assets serving over 1,600 institutions through OCIO services, private equity strategies, and investment research.
Commonfund is an institutional asset manager founded in 1971 with a seed grant from the Ford Foundation and $72 million contributed to its first fund by 63 founding college and university endowments. More than 50 years on, the firm manages approximately $30 billion in assets for over 1,600 institutions, with a client base spanning university endowments, foundations, nonprofit institutions, pension funds, family offices, and Registered Investment Advisors. Its mandate is to give institutions that lack the scale of the largest endowments access to comparable investment expertise and governance standards.
For private equity professionals, the relevant business unit is CF Private Equity, which provides access to investments across venture capital, buyouts, growth equity, and real assets strategies. Alongside it, Commonfund OCIO delivers outsourced chief investment officer services, taking comprehensive portfolio management responsibility for nonprofit organizations. The structure pairs private markets deal execution with multi-asset portfolio construction and long-horizon institutional capital.
Research and education form a distinct third pillar through Commonfund Institute, publisher of the Commonfund Benchmark Studies on nonprofit investment practices and host of the annual Commonfund Forum. The firm describes its founding purpose as leveling the playing field for nonprofit institutions, and states a commitment to trust, transparency, and ethical behavior in serving that community.
