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NGOs and Social Enterprises · Cultural foundations
HR for Cultural Foundations: Artists, Curators and Project-Based Teams
A cultural foundation supports music, dance, theatre, crafts or literature through festivals, residencies and archives. Here is how to organise artists, curators, producers and project staff on fair, clear terms.
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Share your requirementsA cultural foundation may run a festival, a performing arts school, a gallery, a library of recordings, a craft revival programme or fellowships for artists. A core team of a director, programme manager, producer, accounts and administration keeps the year going, and many others come in by project: artists, curators, stage managers, technicians, designers, writers, translators and interns. Many arrangements are verbal and per project, and the line between employee, consultant, guest artist and volunteer is blurred. Festivals and exhibitions create heavy peaks with long days and travel, followed by quiet periods. Funding comes from donors, sponsors, ticket income and grants, each with conditions. Reputation matters, so credit, fees and fair treatment of artists are sensitive. Senior artists, patrons and board members can have strong views, and young staff work for passion and low pay. See also HR for NGOs and social enterprises.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in cultural foundations, you may see
- Employee or freelancer
- Fees agreed by phone
- Festival peaks and burnout
- Interns and fellows as cheap labour
- Credit and rights
- Patrons and board interfere
- Travel and touring risks
- Funding shapes jobs
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in cultural foundations
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Directors and programme heads
- Curators and artistic coordinators
- Producers and event managers
- Stage managers and technicians
- Teachers, trainers and guest artists
- Archivists and documentation staff
- Interns, fellows and volunteers
Roles we help you hire in cultural foundations
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in cultural foundations. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
Job descriptions for this sector
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
We set up the interview and hiring process for cultural foundations
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
1. Role brief and scorecard
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
2. Stages and sequence
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
3. Question bank and scoring
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
4. Interviewer readiness
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
5. Offer and follow-up
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Where HR strains in cultural foundations
Employee or freelancer
Many people work every year on the same terms, and nobody is sure if they are staff, consultants or guests.
Fees agreed by phone
Artists and curators are promised fees and credit by phone, and later disagree on amount, timing or what was included.
Festival peaks and burnout
Weeks of 16-hour days around an event are followed by weeks of empty time, with no rest or recognition.
Interns and fellows as cheap labour
Young people are given large tasks for a small stipend and a certificate, with no clear learning plan or supervision.
Credit and rights
Who owns a recording, a design or a script is not written, and disputes arise when the work is reused.
Patrons and board interfere
A senior artist or patron tells staff what to do, and the director has to manage expectations while keeping goodwill.
Travel and touring risks
Artists and crew travel with equipment, with no clear rules on advances, accommodation, safety and insurance.
Funding shapes jobs
A post exists as long as a grant lasts, and the team's institutional memory leaves with each cycle.
HR topics for cultural foundations
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Learning and Development; Policies, Compliance and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for ngos and social enterprises, not in general.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a cultural foundations business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Sort out who is staff and who is freelance
A short test for each recurring person, with a written agreement matching reality.
What this coversHide
Sort out who is staff and who is freelance
A short test for each recurring person, with a written agreement matching reality.
What this coversHide
A short test for each recurring person, with a written agreement matching reality. The HR documentation process gives a format. Confirm classification with a qualified professional.
Write artist and curator engagement letters
Scope, fee, dates, credit, payment timing, travel and rights, before work starts.
What this coversHide
Write artist and curator engagement letters
Scope, fee, dates, credit, payment timing, travel and rights, before work starts.
What this coversHide
Scope, fee, dates, credit, payment timing, travel and rights, before work starts.
Plan festival staffing
A rota with rest, meals, transport and extra compensation, plus a post-event break.
What this coversHide
Plan festival staffing
A rota with rest, meals, transport and extra compensation, plus a post-event break.
What this coversHide
A rota with rest, meals, transport and extra compensation, plus a post-event break. The attendance, shift and leave process helps.
Design a real internship
A learning plan, a supervisor, a stipend written down and a closing review.
What this coversHide
Design a real internship
A learning plan, a supervisor, a stipend written down and a closing review.
What this coversHide
A learning plan, a supervisor, a stipend written down and a closing review. The learning and development process supports this.
Agree rights and credit
A one-page statement on ownership, reuse and credit for recordings, designs and texts, checked with a qualified professional.
What this coversHide
Agree rights and credit
A one-page statement on ownership, reuse and credit for recordings, designs and texts, checked with a qualified professional.
What this coversHide
A one-page statement on ownership, reuse and credit for recordings, designs and texts, checked with a qualified professional.
Give patrons a channel
A single route through the director for patron and board requests so staff are not pulled in many directions.
What this coversHide
Give patrons a channel
A single route through the director for patron and board requests so staff are not pulled in many directions.
What this coversHide
A single route through the director for patron and board requests so staff are not pulled in many directions.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- List everyone who worked with the foundation last year and how each was engaged.
- Check for written fee and credit terms for the last three projects.
- Find out how many hours the team worked in festival week.
- Look at what each intern was asked to do and who guided them.
- Ask who owns the recordings and designs you use today.
- Ask staff to whom they go when a patron makes a request.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the employment, copyright, tax and grant-condition rules that apply to you.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- HR documentation
Engagement letters that make fees, dates, credit and rights clear.
- Attendance, shift and leave
Festival rotas, rest and recovery time.
- Learning and development
Internships and fellowships with a plan, not just a stipend.
- HR policy packages
A policy on freelancers, rights and patron requests.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in ngos and social enterprises, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Process
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Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
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A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
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Aligning a global parent's HR rules with how an India team actually works
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Questions owners ask
It depends on how the work is arranged in practice. Write down the arrangement and ask a qualified professional to confirm how it should be treated.
Scope, fee, payment dates, travel, credit, rights, cancellation and who to contact. Keep it short and signed.
Plan rest days into the calendar, rotate heavy duties and give recognition, not only thanks.
With a written plan, a named guide, a clear stipend and a review. Do not give them tasks that need a full employee without support.
It should be written down before the work starts. Ask a qualified professional to help draft the terms.
We would ask how the core team and project people are engaged, and how fees and credit are settled. A sensible first piece of work is engagement letters, a festival rota and a plan for interns. Scope and fees are agreed in writing afterwards.
More on HR for ngos and social enterprises
All 43 business types in ngos and social enterprises · Find another business type
Cultural trustsEducation NGOsCharitable foundationsChurches and faith-based organisationsGrant-making foundationsCommunity development organisationsEmployee Administration in ngos and social enterprisesLearning and Development in ngos and social enterprisesPolicies, Compliance and Governance in ngos and social enterprises
See all HR topics for ngos and social enterprises, or another industry.