Keeping it open

Investing in human resources to ensure a social venture’s openness is as important as investing in a building or machine. For it concerns the formulation and presentation of a venture’s identity, to itself and to the outside world. Visits from external experts can be an aid to training and formation or, as in the case of Sekem, they can keep an organisation open to new ideas and models. The quality and extent of a project’s external relationships should be thought of as a cultural project, for it is from an open and inclusive culture that a social venture draws much of its strength.