Diana Veloza is an HR Executive with extensive experience in all areas of Human Resources.
Her passion and dedication to Human Resources has led to her success in Human Resources.
Diana is the Chief Human Resources Officer for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and plays a vital role in the development and implementation of human resources strategies and programs. The Diocese of Brooklyn serves the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens throughout 186 parishes with 201 churches and 85 Catholic Schools and Academies.
Prior to joining the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, Diana was the Vice President of Human Resources at Covenant House International Headquarters, a large International non- profit organization that provides housing and supportive services to over 80,000 youth facing homelessness every year. At Covenant House, she wore many different hats and led various HR functions including talent management, HR policies and procedures, employee relations, performance management, compensation and compliance.
Previously, Diana also served as the Director of Human Resources for Transitional Services of NY, a non-profit mental health agency. Early in her career she held two other Human Resources positions at The Reliable Automatic Sprinkler Company, a manufacturer of fire protection equipment and Wells Rich Greene, a large advertising agency.
Diana obtained a Master of Science Degree in Human Resources from the New School and Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from St. John’s University. Diana is an Executive Committee member of HR PANO – Human Resources Professional Association of Non-Profit Organizations and she also enjoys mentoring college students who wish to pursue a career in Human Resources.
More from Diana…
Diana is the Chief Human Resources Officer for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. It’s a nonprofit organization.
But Diana is no stranger to the for-profit world, and she says there’s a big difference in working between the two.
“[In the nonprofit world], there’s not enough money to accommodate what you want to do. That’s really quite honest. It is what it is. You get a certain budget, you get a certain dollar amount and this is what you have to spend for the year. And when you’re looking at recruitment, talent management, there’s a lot of time and money spent in that area to attract the talent that you want to bring there to provide the services.
So that’s tough also, because the wages are low in the social services field. So how do you recruit talented, dedicated, motivated employees for low salaries? In the nonprofit world, that means a great benefits package a lot of times, and that’s how you balance it out. You can’t provide high salaries, but you look at what you can offer as far as benefits. And obviously, the work that they do if it’s their passion, that’s another factor.
Someone that wants to transition from the for-profit world into the nonprofit world, and I have recruited individuals who have made those decisions, a lot of it comes from within themselves wanting to make this change. And it probably has to do a lot with their values.
They want to work for an organization where they’re going to have an impact and feel that impact and the true value of their work when they get home that day. And a nonprofit, that’s the perfect world to apply that to, because nonprofit work is very rewarding. It’s hard work. But at the end of the day, when you come home, you know that you have made an impact in someone else’s life. So that is critical and key.
If you want to make lots of money, I don’t say that’s not possible in a nonprofit, but it is limited, as I mentioned, due to budgetary constraints. So money is not the motivating factor when you transition into a nonprofit environment.
You can see that as a con, but it depends where you are in your life. I’ve seen a lot, make the transition, making large amounts of money at very big organizations and taking a cut just because they got tired of that world and wanted to have work in an organization and have impact and be able to be part of the organization’s mission.
As far as skills, for people in human resources, if you have experience, it’s transferable. A lot of employers are now actually hiring people from the for-profit world because of their business acumen. So nonprofits have evolved a whole lot in that area.
There’s a lot of change management going on. There’s a lot of data, there’s metrics, a lot of the things that the for-profit world has already done is now being introduced or is already in place in transition in the nonprofit world.”
