from 2010
DIANE KILLEEN
talks about her start with Disney and her
role as Manager, Disney VoluntEARS & Cast Initiatives

by Scott Wolf

When you think of Disneyland, the first thing that might come to mind are the attractions, perhaps the parades or shows, or maybe the characters. Yet, there's a whole part of the magic kingdom that many people are not even aware of... the Disneyland Resort VoluntEARS, and they are doing their part to make the world outside of Disneyland a better place. The VoluntEARS contribute more than 50,000 hours of community service hours every year and is run by Diane Killeen. One of the great joys I receive out of my Mouse Clubhouse interviews, is learning about the people whose stories are not as well known, but no less interesting, and Diane is a real hero!

Scott Wolf: When did you first work for Disney?

Diane Killeen: I actually started in 1980. I'm from the Orange County area. After I married my husband and had my first child we were transferred up to Northern California. We stayed up there two years and I'd just come back and my husband didn't even know I was looking for a job. I was bored, I had a baby, I was home and I had to do something.

My sister worked here at the hotels for UNOCO (the Disneyland Hotel Merchandise department) at that time. She said, "Just go apply for something part time." So I applied and told the interviewer, "I just want something part time," and they convinced me to take a full time position.

I started with the Magic Kingdom Club and a year later I transferred to the (Disney) University. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to progress in a variety of roles at the University.

It was always meant to be, just like everybody else, a small part time job and 30 years later I'm still here.

SW: Where did you go after the University?

DK: I stayed at the Disney University for quite a few years and then there was a position open to work for Ron Dominguez when we were doing what was at that time the Westcot expansion. I always admired him so I applied for the position and became his staff assistant, and was part of the Westcot expansion project.

Ron was a great mentor and really helped me to grow. He started sending me out into the community to do presentations, and pretty soon, once the project opened, he offered me a position in what was at that time Public Relations. I started doing some of the community outreach efforts that we have here at the resort.

A few years later there was an opportunity to go into the Disney VoluntEARS program as the manager of Disney VoluntEARS and Cast Initiatives program. That was almost 13 years ago.

About three years later I was approached if I'd be interested in managing the Ambassador program. I didn't give up the VoluntEARS or the Cast Initiatives side but I also took the Ambassador program. The two programs seem to go hand in hand because the Ambassadors are out with the Cast Members so much that it really works very, very well to have them integrated with the VoluntEARS program in anything that we do in the community.

About 15 years ago we moved the program from Marketing into Public Affairs, or Community Relations at that time, but it's all part of Public Affairs now. We continue to support marketing initiatives and promotions and all of those opportunities, but where the Ambassador program lives now is part of the Public Affairs division so we also partner with government relations, community relations and internal communications, so it really makes sense where it lives right now.

SW: What is Cast Initiatives?

DK: Cast Initiatives is any of the programs that involves encouraging our Cast Members to donate or participate in various activities in our community. So we have Community Relations, and Community Relations has a cast side and also a community side. My counterpart, Janice, deals with external partners and things that we do like CHOC Walk in the Park. Initiatives like that where we're partnering with a non-profit. My responsibility is getting the Cast Members involved with those non-profit organizations.

In my role as manager of the Disney VoluntEARS program for the Disneyland Resort site, I have the opportunity to also partner with our corporate office and then my worldwide partners, so we share a lot of resources.

SW: Worldwide partners, meaning Cast Initiatives at the Disney Resorts worldwide?

DK: Yes. Each year all of our worldwide teams participate in the Points of Light conference where we learn from our nonporofit partners and other companies about best practices in the world of volunteerism. Followiing the conference there is a Disney meeting scheduled where we spend a couple of days together, planning all of our initiatives for the year. So if you're in South America and only have a few resources but I've been doing programs here and I have these resources that have already been developed or promotions, we can share those with our worldwide partners and they don't have to spend the money developing those, it's really very beneficial.

Even for those who have smaller programs, we learn so much from them. It's a good fit, a good learning opportunity, I really love it.

It's also nice that when we have disasters around the world, Cast Initiatives supports those efforts. For example, the recent wildfires that we had here in Southern California, I coordinated the tours where we took the Disney VoluntEARS and characters out to all the fire shelters during the firestorms, so we could just bring a little bit of Disney cheer to the people that were sitting in those shelters for week after week. We played games with them and did photo opportunities and some fun things with the children. We brought them all goody bags because it was around Halloween time. So we'll partner with Worldwide Outreach and we'll coordinate those tours.

When we had the disasters down in Florida and in the Gulf Coast, anything we do to raise money for that, that's part of my Cast Initiatives responsibility.

SW: So even though it wasn't your people going to Florida, you were still raising money for them?

DK: Yes, we did. We did silent auctions here and anything we could think of to raise money for our actual counterparts in Florida, our Cast Members were affected there. The dollars that we raised actually went to them. Other efforts, food collection, blankets, clothing, things like that, that might have gone to the Gulf Coast, we all have a hand in that.

SW: Are all Cast Members welcome to be VoluntEARs?

DK: Yes, we actually do about 100 events a year, actual VoluntEAR opportunities for our Cast Members.

SW: And that's just through Disneyland?

DK: Yes, it's about 120,000 hours that our Cast Members give back to the community right now, so there's a lot going on. We have a good group of folks that help us. They are called the Disney VoluntEARS Leadership Council. There's 45 people that sit on that team that represent different areas around the resort. We come together monthly and they help us decide which events to approve. Non-profits submit their applications to us to support their activities. Once approved our Leadership Council helps us project lead at the event.

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NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in the interviews are solely those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mouse Clubhouse. Mouse Clubhouse accepts no legal liability or responsibility for any claims made or opinions expressed within.