Kaplan Foundation

The Kaplan Foundation (EIN 36-3796516) is a closed, unstaffed family foundation run entirely by four unpaid officers: Carol Kaplan (President), the late Edward Kaplan (Secretary/Treasurer, d. July 14, 2025), and sons Martin and Alan Kaplan (Directors). There is no program staff, no public grants page, no LOI portal, and the DB record's application_instructions field is explicitly blank — this is not a funder built to receive or evaluate unsolicited proposals. Its giving splits into two distinct tiers. The dominant tier is a pass-through relationship with the Chicago Community Trust: two grants totaling $1.71M (98.8% of the $1.73M in grants this record tracks) went to CCT "to support charitable purposes at an array of 501(c)(3) organizations" — functionally a donor-advised-fund arrangement where CCT staff, not the Kaplan family directly, select or vet sub-recipients. The second tier is a set of small, personally directed checks ($200-$4,500) to specific organizations tied to the family's own community: Jewish congregational and community life (Park Avenue Synagogue in NY, Adolph and Rose Levis JCC and the Boca Raton Jewish Film Festival in FL), children's and family services (JAFCO, Caridad Center), and medical research (Foundation Fighting Blindness). First-time applicants should understand that neither tier is realistically accessible through a cold proposal. Organizations already inside the Chicago Community Trust's donor and grantee network have the best structural path to consideration, since that is where the foundation sends the overwhelming majority of its outside dollars. Organizations with a genuine, pre-existing tie to the Kaplan family's personal and professional circles — the University of Chicago's Booth School (Edward Kaplan founded its New Venture Challenge), Illinois Institute of Technology (home to the Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Technology), Chicago-area Jewish federations, or Boca Raton, FL Jewish community institutions — have historically fared better than unaffiliated nonprofits. There is no evidence in the 990 record, grantee list, or web search results of a competitive review process, site visits, or a relationship-building ladder from LOI to full proposal; grants appear to be renewed relationships rather than newly competed awards.

Total assets stood at $12.9M at the end of FY2024, down from a $19.7M peak in FY2013 — a roughly 34% decline over a decade. Total giving has followed the same downward arc: $1.17M paid in grants in FY2019, dropping to $472K during the FY2020 pandemic dip, recovering to $908K-$936K in FY2021-2022, then $795K in FY2023 (the most recent year with complete giving data). FY2024 shows an unusual $9.7M in total revenue driven by $8.02M in contributions received — a large family inflow — even as net assets fell to $12.9M, implying substantial distributions or valuation losses that year. Grant sizing is extremely bimodal. The DB's typical_grant_size field puts the median at just $1,000 (average $129,786, max $900,000 on a per-grant basis) — a gap that reflects two very different populations of gifts. Excluding the two Chicago Community Trust grants ($1.71M combined, averaging $855,000 each), the remaining 13 tracked grants range from $200 (Jewish Adoption and Family Care Options) to $4,500 (Foundation Fighting Blindness, across two gifts), with most clustered between $500 and $2,500. Geographically, of the 15 tracked grants: Florida receives 7 (nearly half), Illinois 3, Maryland 2, New York 2, and Ohio 1 — notable given the foundation's Northbrook, IL address, and consistent with a family that also maintains ties to the Boca Raton, FL Jewish community. By purpose, the visible small-dollar giving splits across Jewish community/synagogue life, children's and family services, education, and medical research, with no single program area capturing a majority of the identifiable direct gifts (the CCT pass-through obscures true program-area allocation for roughly 99% of tracked dollars).

Among the four similarly-named "Kaplan" funders researched, this Northbrook foundation is both the smallest by annual giving and the most opaque — it is the only one with no professional staff, no published guidelines, and no identifiable inquiry channel. The J.M. Kaplan Fund sits at the opposite end, with a formal, published application process and a public program team; the Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation and Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Foundation fall in between, with named executive contacts even though neither accepts unsolicited proposals. Grant seekers who assume any "Kaplan Foundation" hit is interchangeable with these better-resourced peers will misdirect effort — this fund's giving is materially smaller and structurally closed by comparison.

The single most consequential recent development is the July 14, 2025 death of Edward L. Kaplan, the foundation's Secretary/Treasurer, at age 82. Edward co-founded and served as CEO of Zebra Technologies, was named a regional "High Tech Entrepreneur of the Year," and built his philanthropic identity around entrepreneurship education — founding the New Venture Challenge at the University of Chicago's Booth School and establishing the Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Technology at Illinois Institute of Technology. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Carol Kaplan (the foundation's President), and sons Martin and Alan Kaplan, both foundation Directors. Because the foundation's most recent complete financial and officer data on file (FY2024) predates his death, there is no public record yet of how the foundation's leadership, staffing, or giving pattern may change going forward — the FY2025 Form 990-PF, once filed, will be the first indicator. Beyond this, targeted web searches for direct news coverage of the Kaplan Foundation's 2025-2026 grantmaking, program announcements, or public statements returned no results specific to this EIN; search results instead surfaced unrelated, similarly named Kaplan foundations (Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation, Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Foundation, J.M. Kaplan Fund, Kaplan Educational Foundation). Absent new public activity, the foundation's last known major pattern remains its FY2023 giving of $795,000, anchored by its recurring Chicago Community Trust relationship.

There is no formal application process to describe for this foundation, and pretending otherwise would mislead applicants — the DB record shows no grants page, no application form URL, and no listed program contact, and web research found no LOI process, deadline, or public guidelines anywhere. The realistic paths in are indirect. First, because roughly 99% of this foundation's tracked outside dollars flow through a single Chicago Community Trust account rather than direct grantee selection, organizations that are already inside CCT's donor-advised fund network, or that can get CCT program staff to flag them to fundholders, have a structurally better shot than anyone approaching the Kaplan family cold — engage CCT's donor services team (312-616-8000 / grants@cct.org) rather than the foundation directly. Second, target the family's actual documented affinities rather than generic grant language: Jewish congregational and community life (the pattern includes a synagogue in New York and multiple Jewish community organizations in Boca Raton, FL), children's/family services, and — reflecting Edward Kaplan's legacy — entrepreneurship and technology education tied to the University of Chicago and IIT. A proposal or introduction that speaks to one of these specific, verifiable affinities will read as informed; generic "please fund our mission" outreach will not. Third, do not submit an unsolicited proposal by mail or email — with the foundation's own record marked as accepting only preselected recipients and no listed intake channel, an unsolicited approach has no documented precedent of working. Fourth, treat late 2026/2027 as a watch period: Edward Kaplan's July 2025 death may prompt a leadership or process change (as happened years earlier at the separate, larger Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation when it professionalized under an executive director) — re-check for a new website, staff, or public guidelines before assuming the closed posture is permanent. Finally, keep any warm-introduction ask modest and specific: outside the CCT channel, actual checks this foundation has written run $200 to $4,500, not five- or six-figure program grants.