Tag: ocio

Elizabeth Warren, TIFF’s Director of Member Strategy, is cited in the May 2, 2022 issue of FundFire. Elizabeth is quoted on nonprofits having less tolerance for variability in their budgets and spending volatility coming to the forefront of conversations with nonprofit clients.

OCIOs, Consultants Call on Endowments to Re-Examine Spending Policies

The always highly anticipated annual university endowment results for fiscal 2021 (FY 2021) were released in February, triggering the usual flurry of articles in the financial media. These results received a great deal of attention, largely because of the uniquely strong returns. In our new white paper, “Higher Education Endowment Results: Reflections on Recent Returns and Outlook for the Future”, we aim to:

• Explain the context for the strong returns, focusing on the asset classes that drove this outcome
• Give our perspective on the outlook for market returns in the coming years
• Discuss some of the key investment tenets that, we at TIFF, believe contributed to strong outperformance from some select institutions

Expect more college and university endowments to invest in private equity and venture capital moving forward. That was one takeaway from a conversation with leaders of TIFF Investment Management, a firm that advises nonprofit organizations, including higher-education institutions.

The schools that saw the largest returns in fiscal 2021, a record year for university endowments, profited most from private equity and venture funds, said Kane Brenan, TIFF’s CEO, and Jess Portis, head of member portfolio management and services. That’s inspiring more college endowments to find ways to get a piece of the action. Private equity and venture capital accounted for just 2.3% of asset allocation in endowments between $25 million and $50 million, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers-TIAA 2020 “Study of Endowments.” Meanwhile, endowments over $1 billion relied on those alternative investments for a quarter of their asset allocations.

TIFF Investment Management is pleased to welcome Jennifer Deger to our TIFF Investment Program (TIP) mutual fund Board.

Jennifer Deger, Director of Finance and Global Controller at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been elected to the TIP mutual fund Board. In her role, Ms. Deger is responsible for overseeing the global tax and accounting functions for the foundation with over $50 billion in assets and multiple offices and subsidiaries.  Ms. Deger and her team manage the annual financial statement audits, international payroll, annual disbursements of over $6B, general ledger accounting, employee expense management, tax, and regulatory filings.

For over 30 years TIFF’s Boards have included many of the nonprofit industry’s most prominent CEOs, CIOs, and other financial executives. Ms. Deger brings significant financial expertise to TIFF and will support the Board’s mission to provide insight into asset allocation, portfolio construction, governance, and the selection of investment managers.  For more information on TIFF’s Boards, visit: TIFF Board of Directors.