Before I start talking about the best Business Schools for Social Entrepreneurship, lets first discuss what Social Entrepreneurship is.  A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principals to organize, create, and manage a venture to create social change. A business entrepreuner typically measures performance in profit and return, however a social entrepreneur focuses on creating social capital. Thus, the main aim of social entrepreneurship is to further social and environmental goals though this need not necessarily be incompatible with making a profit. In fact, many of the new breed of social entrepreneurs are pursuing for profit ventures.

According to Beyond Grey Pinstrips, the Aspen Institute’s alternative rankings for schools integrating social and environmental stewardship into their curricula, the top 10 US schools for social entrepreunership are:

1. University of Michigan, Ross

2. Yale School of Management

3. Stanford

4. Notre Dame, Mendoza

5. University of California, Berkeley (Haas)

6. NYU

7. Columbia

8. University of Virginia, Darden

9. Cornell

10. George Washington University

Beyond Pinstrips also notes some interesting trends with regards to social entrepreunship and Business Schools:

  • The percentage of schools surveyed that require students to take a course dedicated to business and society issues has increased dramatically over time – it is now at 69%
  • The percentage of schools requiring content in a core course on how mainstream business can act as an engine for positive social or environmental change remains low, at 30%.
  • The most popular place to find courses with business and society content is not the CSR/Business Ethics Department. The top disciplines, in order, teaching about social, environmental and ethical issues are:

1. Management
2. Finance
3. Marketing
4. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)/Business Ethics
5. Accounting