Volunteering and working her way up within Jewish Social Service Agency felt like “natural evolution” to Candi Kaplan, a former JSSA board president.
She received the Invest in Others Award for her community service on Sept. 19. In honor of the award, the Invest in Others Charitable Foundation will donate $60,000 to JSSA.
Kaplan, a Potomac resident who belongs to Congregation Har Shalom, said her family experienced hardships, which is why she strongly believes in giving back to the community.
“When I was a kid, my family had a lot of challenges,” Kaplan said. “My father was in and out of business, we lost our house, he lost his business, and I don’t think my parents ever really thought that there were community resources available to help.”
Because of her childhood, Kaplan is now aware of the social services the community has to offer, for Jews and non-Jews alike. JSSA was one that stuck out to her for its mission — the nonprofit began more than 120 years ago as a group of women who fed neighbors in need.
It is now a health and social wellness agency that provides family, employment and disability services, hospice, mental health support, chronic illness support, home care and a Holocaust survivor program.
“I was just so enamored with all the help they do for so many aspects of the community that I just thought it was a great way to serve,” Kaplan said of JSSA.
She was asked to serve on the organization’s development committee about 15 years ago and eventually became board president, serving from 2017 to 2022. For the past two decades, Kaplan has provided financial support, organizational development expertise and board leadership for JSSA.
“It felt like home,” Kaplan said of her volunteer work.
Invest in Others recognizes financial advisors who are making a difference through charities across the United States, according to its website. Kaplan is also an entrepreneur, taking after her parents who owned a small business: She founded Kaplan Financial Group in 1979 during a time in which many finance companies wouldn’t hire women.
“When I decided in the ‘70s that I wanted to be involved in the financial industry [and that] I wanted to work in stock exchange, they wouldn’t hire me, because in those days, they could tell you that they didn’t hire women,” Kaplan said.
She began working at Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, where she gained experience and got various financial licenses, but she wanted a client-based, service-oriented business.
“I figured out pretty quickly that I was going to have to do it on my own, that nobody was necessarily going to hire me to do all the aspects of being an entrepreneur that I wanted to do,” Kaplan said. “I wanted to help people with financial decisions. I wanted to help them make decisions about their kids’ education, about their estate planning, about their financial planning. And it just seemed to me at the time that the only way to do it was to found my own company.”
So she did.
“I’ve basically been involved in the business since then,” Kaplan said. “My daughter joined me over 20 years ago and she now runs the company.”
Kaplan said her daughter, the chief operating officer and managing partner, will take over the company once Kaplan retires at the end of 2024: “It’s been a family tradition.”
She added that she’s glad that times have changed for women since the start of her career.
“It has changed dramatically over the last 45 years, because there are many, many more opportunities available for women, for everybody in the business, but at the time that I got involved, there really were no opportunities,” Kaplan said.
She said finance is a good opportunity for women because the field is all about teaching others and women are “the best teachers.”
“We nurture children and we nurture organizations,” Kaplan said. “It’s exciting to me that there is so much female leadership these days because every time I see a new female president, or a new female chair of the board, I’m thrilled because I feel like it’s taken way too long for it to happen, but at least it’s happening.”
Kaplan has not only forged her own path professionally, but also religiously. Growing up as an only child in Florida, Kaplan longed to connect with her family’s Jewish heritage.
“I found myself trying to make Jewish traditions in the house myself because we didn’t celebrate any of the holidays, and I found that really upsetting,” Kaplan said. “I tried to implore my parents to teach me and help me establish traditions, and they just weren’t interested.
But when I grew up and got out of the house and had my own life, I was pretty hell-bent on creating those traditions for my family and for my kids.”
Kaplan has two children and four grandchildren. She created the Lawrence A. Kaplan Endowment at JSSA in honor of her late husband in 2014.
“I just feel like there’s a tremendous need in the community for service and I’m happy to provide it whenever I can,” Kaplan said.
