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Stories | 12 July 2024

How we work: creating an organisational structure

The Dublin City Council Culture Company team in a meeting at Richmond Barracks, Inchicore, Dublin 8

We have created a company structure to maximise the skills our team members have and to make work to the highest standard possible. We organise ourselves as a Leadership Team with supporting Departments of Listening, Making, Going, Learning, Sharing, Facilitating, Doing and Resourcing.

The Culture Company has gathered people from a mixture of backgrounds and experience across community engagement; programming; history; arts and culture; curating and producing; project management and communications; policy and European projects; heritage; festivals; tour guiding; finance and project development to deliver its work.

We have created a company structure to maximise these skills and make work to the highest standard possible. All departments collaborate closely with each other in the delivery of our work. We organise ourselves as a Leadership Team with supporting Departments of Listening, Making, Going, Learning, Sharing, Facilitating, Doing and Resourcing.

Leadership Team


The Leadership team (CEO, Director of Creative Engagement, Director of Finance and Director of Strategic Development and Research) are responsible for delivering the vision and mission of the Company aligned with the Company Strategy together with their respective teams.

The Leadership team's role is to ensure that the Company is organised and structured to deliver its objectives through strategic and creative leadership in the areas of programme, accessibility, financial and operational management and governance, people management, advocacy and communications.

The Leadership team work together with their teams to shape and implement programmes that fully engage the people of Dublin to ensure the Company is consistently reaching new audiences and participants for cultural experiences across the City.

The Engagement Department (or the Department of LISTENING)

The Engagement department actively listens to and values what the people of Dublin feel about their city and their cultural experiences. The Engagement team continuously talks with communities and people across the city to learn and understand what matters to them.

We open up new ways for people to access cultural activities more easily and confidently in order to develop and expand their cultural habits. The team works closely with the Creative Engagement, Visitor Experience and Project Development teams to ensure what we learn is the foundation stone of our activities and programmes.

The Creative Engagement Department (or the Department of MAKING)


The Creative Engagement department creates ways for people in Dublin to see, try out and make culture together, based on their wishes, experiences and stories.

The Creative Engagement team responds to what we learn from listening to ensure all of our programmes are relevant. We aim to build capacity so that people can build culture into their everyday lives. We collaborate with a wide range of people, artists, historians, makers, and cultural partners, to test new approaches and ensure our programmes reflect culture in all its forms.

The department works closely with all teams across the company, but in particular with the Engagement team to build relationships with interested individuals and groups; with the Learning team to record our work and methods, evaluate outcomes and inform future work; and with the Visitor Experience team in the delivery of programmes in our cultural buildings.

The Visitor Experience Department (or the Department of GOING)

The Visitor Experience department supports the smooth running of all events and activities for 14 Henrietta Street and Richmond Barracks including event planning, resource management and facilitation.

The Visitor Experience team manages front-of-house operations and tours with its primary focus on providing a welcoming environment whilst ensuring the highest level of customer service for all who visit and engage with the Culture Company including visitors, artists, audiences, venue hires, team members, local community.

Collaboration is a key aspect of the department's work, as the department works with all of the Culture Company teams to help maintain a safe and inclusive environment for everyone engaging with the cultural sites and programmes.

The Department of Development and Research (or the Department of LEARNING)

The Development and Research department learns from everything we hear across all our programmes and data projects to find strategic impact through experimentation, capacity building and creating the foundations for long-term effects in cultural access with partnerships and programmes.

The Development and Research team gathers data from all of the Company’s programmes, keeps up to date with relevant policies at national and international levels and uses this knowledge to inform future strategic development, partnerships and advocacy opportunities.

The department works closely with all departments to ensure we listen, learn and try new ways of working as well as sharing what we’ve learnt with local, national and international partners.

The Department of Communications (or the Department of SHARING)


The Communications department is responsible for helping people find out about, and understand, what we do and why we do it.

The Communications team manages our websites, newsletters and online presences, our project documentation and our publications to reach new audiences and participants for cultural experiences.

The department works closely with all programmes and sections across the Culture Company to support the communication and development needs of each project and programme, as well as the company as a whole.

The Cultural Spaces Department (or the Department of FACILITATING)


The Cultural Spaces department ensures that we think of our spaces not just as empty rooms but as cultural spaces ripe with potential and possibility for connecting everything and everyone.

The Cultural Spaces team collaborates with a diverse range of stakeholders making our spaces available for other organisations to hire and make use of to host events and showcase culture in all its forms. They focus on events with cultural and community access at their core.

The department works closely with Operations, Visitor Experience, Finance and Communications to ensure the highest standards of accessibility, inclusion and universal design, sustainability, health and safety and compliance are achieved in all of its work.

The Finance Department (or the Department of RESOURCING)

The Finance department supports all of the company departments to ensure the smooth delivery of programmes in a feasible, sustainable and cost-effective manner.

The finance team ensures all staff, artists and contractors as well as suppliers are paid promptly and fairly. They provide accurate and timely information on finances, budget and forecast management to all external and internal stakeholders.

The department works closely with the CEO to ensure the ongoing viability of programmes and to support the company’s growth and expansion and with all departments to ensure we listen and support the wide-ranging work of the company at all times.

The Operations Department (or the Department of DOING)


The Operations department ensures the smooth running of the company through the creation and implementation of company policies and procedures in all things legal, financial, HR & training, accessibility & inclusion, health & safety, governance, facilities, venue hire, collections & conservation and IT.

The Operations team gets the best advice from qualified specialist experts, and we ensure we remain sufficiently trained, to ensure that as a company and team, we do what we need in order to do the best job possible, as safely and responsibly as possible and in as simple and straight-forward a way as possible.

The department works closely with all of the other departments to identify current and future requirements for each, as individual departments and within the broader company context, and to ensure that our policies, protocols and practice remain consistently current.