But creativity, enterprise and business acumen are not necessarily fostered at such places.
How many have the required business acumen and enterprise knowledge?
"These students join a long list of previous ABS award winners who have shown outstanding initiative, enterprise, determination and business acumen," he said.
As I have interviewed several senior level executives in the for-profit sector recently, they typically feel that non-profits do not have the business acumen for social enterprise, thus hindering them to achieve important long-term outcomes.
It's important to recognise that traditional business has a lot of really good processes, thoughts and acumen that social enterprises can learn from.
Its diners may possess a wealth of business acumen, but the multimillion-dollar enterprise — which has spinoff restaurants in Las Vegas and Mexico City — is run like any simple trattoria.
Along the way, Keely interned at the Acumen Fund, consulting with social enterprises as varied as an anti-malaria bednet manufacturer and the Royal Bafokeng Nation on economic development policy.
Acumen Fund: Last month, as part of Acumen's work with a coffee social enterprise, I attended the Rwanda Cup of Excellence awards ceremony, the culmination of a two-week contest to identify Rwanda's best specialty coffee.
They apply their legal knowledge to many aspects of development and transactions, and their business acumen to ensuring the financial success of their enterprises.
But it was the collapse of Communism that gave him his opening: he provided financing and Western business school acumen for the takeover of numerous privatised Russian enterprises, often teaming up with an old Moscow school chum, Viktor Vekselberg, as they built industrial conglomerates.
