CornerStone Partners

Lumina, a foundation focused on increasing both access to and success in higher education for U.S. students, is dealing with the recent resignation of its chief investment officer. The CFO reviews the structure the firm has in place to manage its $1.1 billion endowment. Although the CFO and other finance and administration professionals at Lumina are temporarily overseeing the endowment, he recognizes that many other foundations outsourced this responsibility to investment advisory firms. As part of his review, he invited a number of firms-including CornerStone Partners, from Charlottesville, VA-to make presentations to the Lumina management team. While each firm claims the ability to outperform its benchmark, Maas wonders exactly how the outsourcing would add value, and how this outperformance could be quantified.