William & Elaine Kaplan Family Charitable Foundation

William & Elaine Kaplan Family Charitable Foundation

William Kaplan established the William & Elaine Kaplan Family Charitable Foundation in 1983 after building a substantial real estate development business in Newburgh, New York. The foundation retains deep ties to the Hudson Valley, where Kaplan's commercial projects — including the Kaplan Family Center for Cardiovascular Medicine and the Newburgh Armory Unity Center — have shaped the physical and institutional landscape. Joan P. Kaplan serves as president, while Amy Kaplan and David Marks round out the governing board. The foundation's grant-making concentrates on education and human services, with a geographic footprint spanning New York, Massachusetts, and Florida. The foundation has also been identified as having an interest in venture capital opportunities, though the scale and stage of such investments remain opaque. The institution operates with lean governance, drawing on William Kaplan's longstanding relationships with local nonprofits. Kaplan serves as an emeritus board member of Hospice of Orange & Sullivan Counties and is a major benefactor of Mount Saint Mary College, where the Kaplan Family Foundation has funded scholarships and capital projects. Those institutional ties create a sourcing advantage for grants within the mid-Hudson region. The foundation's structural differentiator lies in its integration with the Kaplan family's broader real estate and operating-company footprint. Rather than functioning as a purely financial grant-maker, the William & Elaine Kaplan Family Charitable Foundation is embedded in the civic infrastructure of Newburgh — its physical assets, its hospital partnerships, and its college relationships all reinforce a place-based philanthropic strategy that larger national foundations cannot easily replicate.