Larger US foundations and charities have underperformed their smaller and more nimble peers over each of the past two years, after avoiding alternative assets and sticking with domestic equities and fixed income.

According to the 2011 Commonfund Benchmark study, foundations with up to $100m outperformed foundations with over $1bn in assets by 1.1 percentage points in 2010, and by 4.1 percentage points in 2009. Funds with $101m to $500m under management returned 12.5%, and foundations between $501m and $1bn returned 12.4%.