University of Colorado Foundation

University of Colorado Foundation

The Foundation was created in 1967 as an independent charitable portal for private gifts to the University of Colorado system. President and CEO Jack Finlaw oversees the receipt, management, and investment of endowments and other gift funds directed toward education, research, clinical care, and community engagement across CU's four campuses. Its legal separation from the university means the Foundation controls its own balance sheet and investment policy, answering to a separate board. Allocation spans venture capital, private equity, hedge funds, real estate, natural resources, and commodities. The portfolio runs on a multi-manager framework that blends fund-of-fund commitments with co-investments, buyouts, growth equity, distressed debt, and secondaries. Sectors include climate technology, digital health, space, and industrial technology. The Foundation also operates a real estate arm — the University of Colorado Real Estate Foundation (CUREF) — and actively explores university-adjacent opportunities such as the Gates Family Foundation's bioscience and regenerative-medicine work on the CU Anschutz campus. The overall deployment footprint covers North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Oceania, and Africa. Professionals also manage a growing program of non-cash gifts: a dedicated cryptocurrency donation program, art and collectibles that are integrated into university holdings, and a separate commodities allocation within the long-term investment pool. The team participates in the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and the American Council on Gift Annuities, reflecting a dual identity that merges traditional institutional investing with higher-education advancement. Unlike a pure endowment manager, the Foundation doubles as the university's primary fundraising engine. Because it accepts crypto, real estate, and illiquid assets as gifts, its investment office must value, hold, or liquidate a far wider range of entry assets than a standard outsourced CIO. That hybrid intake architecture — gift processing plus multi-asset management — shapes its liquidity profile and governance cadence in ways that distinguish it from peers who outsource investment functions entirely.