Where is the time actually going — and what does it cost?
Every cultural institution has two kinds of work. The first is the work it exists to do: curating, researching, engaging communities, preserving heritage. The second is the work required to keep the institution running: coordinating, documenting, chasing, reporting, filing. The six workflows below are where the second kind of work most often overwhelms the first.
These are the most common sources of administrative overload in cultural institutions. Click each to see where the time goes.
Select a workflow to read more.
Each of these six areas seems manageable on its own. A loan request here, a grant report there. But they do not exist in isolation — they compound across the team. The registrar chasing a loan approval is not doing metadata work. The director writing a funder report is not doing strategic planning. The coordinator updating the asset database is not engaging with the community.
The cost is not just time. It is the slow erosion of mission focus — the gradual shift from doing the work to managing the work. And because it happens gradually, it is rarely visible until someone stops to measure it.
Figures are sector estimates based on practitioner interviews and workflow analysis. Individual institutions vary.
This is one loan, in one institution, once. Now scale it across every loan, every grant cycle, every approval — and across every team member. The question is no longer whether this is a problem. It is how much it costs.
Administrative overload is not just a morale problem. It has a direct financial cost — in staff time spent on tasks that do not advance the mission. Most institutions have never calculated this figure. Let's start with an estimate.
Research by the Nesta Digital Culture programme and sector surveys suggest that cultural institutions spend an average of around 30% of their salary budgets on tasks that are primarily administrative in nature — coordination, reporting, compliance, and data management.[1] For a team of 10 with a combined salary of €400,000, that is €120,000 per year of mission time absorbed by overhead.
The sector average is 30%. The real figure for any given institution depends on team size, workflows, and how those workflows are currently managed. Use the calculator below to get a number specific to your context.
30% of your salary budget spent on overhead is a board conversation waiting to happen. The question is whether you frame it as a problem or an opportunity — and whether you have a plan.
The frustration is real and it is measurable. Naming these workflows and putting a number on them is the first step toward changing them — not just working harder around them.
Naming a problem is the first step toward solving it. You now have the language — and the numbers.
[1] Nesta — Digital Culture Report, 2023
Independent AI & IT advisory for cultural institutions. Based in Berlin. Working internationally.
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