A Miami University real estate and public administration student is the new leader of a group that works to grow and support impact funds that are run by undergraduate students. Una Marijan became president of the Undergraduate Impact Investing Society in mid-February.

“It’s basically a network that connects all of the undergraduate impact funds. We're really a communication facilitator. We pride ourselves in keeping everyone connected and knowing what events are going on across the country or across the world within the undergraduate impact investing space,” Marijan said. “We’re also helping other funds become established. Either we reach out to universities where we have student connections, or they find us and reach out to us, and we go from there in building out an impact fund for them. We have all of the framework and the tools and experience in building an impact fund that we can relate to them and help them get started.”

Marijan is managing director of the Miami University Social Impact Fund, which was established at Miami University in 2018 and led by the Department of Entrepreneurship’s Center for Social Entrepreneurship.

When it was created, Miami’s Social Impact Fund was one of only a few undergraduate-led funds of its kind in the nation. Now, the Undergraduate Impact Investing Society has 15 members, mainly in the U.S., but with some international members such as the University of Sydney and the London School of Economics.

Marijan said that she became interested in leading the group after learning more about it during an Department of Entrepreneurship/MUSIF trip to Northeastern University last year.

“When I found the Social Impact Fund, that was the first clicking of my puzzle pieces, and then I fell in love with it and figured out this is what I want to do. I realized that with my time at as managing director of Social Impact Fund here at Miami coming to an end this coming semester, I want to be able to help other people do this,” she said. “This gives not just me, but me and a team of other people a platform to do it on a global level, which is really cool.”

Marijan said she hopes to help the UIIS build out the organization’s infrastructure and social media presence during her time as president.