Everywhere you look, social enterprises are springing up to marry social objectives with business. Whether inspired by carbon trading, The Big Issue or Jamie Oliver’s restaurant, Fifteen, forward-thinking business students are choosing courses that will give them the skills to help society to profit.

“Entrepreneurs are driven by the desire to create value,” says Professor Greg Dees, the founder of the Centre for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in North Carolina. “This can be economic, social or environmental.”

Don’t think that managing a double bottom line that combines business and social goals isn’t tough, he says. “People have this idea that the social sector is soft and squishy. But to make money and create social impact is enormously challenging.”

Suzanne Steffens, a Fuqua scholar, spent ten years working in the not-for-profit sector. “I realised that understanding business could help me to propel organisations forward,” she says. Steffens did an internship at Common Good Ventures, a venture philanthropy consultancy, and says that her ambition is to improve the American healthcare system.

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She adds: “The analytical rigour that business school gives you is unmatched.” Of the 400 students on her course, just 20 hail from the social sector but many more are interested. “Colleagues going into the private sector still plan to sit on boards of social ventures.”

Gaurav Rekhi, who graduated from London Business School (LBS) last week, cut his corporate teeth in e-commerce, but an interest in social enterprise led him to co-chair the annual Global Social Venture Competition, jointly organised by LBS.

In addition, a partnership with the fair-trade coffee producer Café Direct took him to Tanzania to work on a feasibility plan for a world-class university. “My long-term goal is to go to India to open a chain of sustainable, for-profit schools for the poor,” he says.

First, though, he plans to sharpen his corporate marketing skills: “Passion is very important but you need to put the other elements in place.” One third of the students at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford study social entrepreneurship. Eugénie Fitzgerald, who previously worked for antipoverty charities in San Francisco, never planned to do an MBA. She says: “It took three directors to persuade me to think seriously about it.” At Saïd’s Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, half of the one-year MBA can be tailored to social and green issues. The opportunity proved irresistible. Fitzgerald now plans to use her newfound interest in finance in socially responsible investing: “Ultimately, I hope to start up on my own.” Rowena Young, the director of the Skoll Centre, says that case studies give budding social entrepreneurs invaluable tools. “MBA [students] are practical people,” she says. “They want to take away something they can implement.”

One in ten graduates of Saïd sets up a business immediately after leaving. Skoll’s students are no exception. “Students come out thinking that lots of things they have done in commercial settings can be applied to the social sector,” Young says. “If you’re dealing with profound social and cultural change, that goes far beyond your next marketing plan. I’d get on the inside now.”

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