BIO

Dr. Kaplan’s fifty-year career has been spent working against poverty and for social justice and peace locally, nationally, and internationally. She holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and a Master of Social Work degree.

 

Her work as an adult educator, social worker and community organizer has taken her into various arenas, including farmworker rights, women’s healthcare, child protection, parenting education, and public history. She has served as an executive, program, and training director. She is also a published author and filmmaker.

 

From Spring 2010 through Summer 2017, Fran worked as a full-time volunteer with the community group that formed the Dr. James Cameron Legacy Foundation and operates the America’s Black Holocaust Museum. She was particularly involved in developing the Foundation’s innovative “museum-beyond-walls,” including its online museum, public education programs, and interracial dialogues series. Dr. Kaplan also helped launch the Foundation’s publishing division, LifeWrites Press, and served as managing editor and contributor to its digital and print publications.

 

In 2017, Dr. Kaplan and her former ABHM co-worker, Reggie Jackson, formed Nurturing Diversity Partners. They provide education, training, and consulting services that foster diversity, inclusion, and equity within institutions and the greater society by increasing historical/cultural literacy, empathy for others’ lived experiences, and capacity for personal and social action.

 

Dr. Kaplan has received eleven community service awards, including the 1992 Social Worker of the Year and the 1998 Promoting Racial Harmony awards from the WI Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, and the 2016 Eliminating Racism Award from the YWCA of Southeast Wisconsin. On her 70th birthday in 2017, the Honorable Gwen Moore, Representative of Wisconsin’s 4th District, read an extended tribute to Fran into the US Congressional Record.

 

NURTURING DIVERSITY PARTNERS

Nurturing Diversity Partners (a program of Jackson-Kaplan Consulting LLC) provides education, training, and consulting services that foster diversity, inclusion, and equity within institutions and communities locally and nationally. We serve community-based and faith organizations, K-12 and post-secondary educational institutions, museums and libraries, corporations, and the media.

Through multi-media presentations, storytelling, facilitated dialogues, and relationship-building, we help our participants increase their:

• Historical and cultural literacy;

• Awareness of own frames of reference;

• Awareness of and empathy for others’ lived experiences; and,

• Capacity for personal and social action toward solutions.

 

All our presentations are customized to meet each particular audience’s needs. We present to students 4th-12th grade; college students; professionals in education, mental health, social services, and business; and adults in the general public. The kinds of topics we frequently cover include, but are not limited to:

• Building Racial Understanding

• The Hidden Impacts of Segregation in (Your Community)

• The Inspiring Life of Dr. James Cameron, Lynching Survivor and Early Civil Rights Pioneer

• The History of African-Americans in Milwaukee (or Wisconsin)

• How Milwaukeeans Rescued Joshua Glover, a Fugitive Slave

• Three Great Women in African-American History

• Why Learn Black History?

• Understanding Racial Issues in Schools from a Trauma-Informed Perspective

• Do Black Lives Matter?

• Can We See Our Own Blind Spots?

• Hidden from History: Untold Stories in the African American Experience

 

Our honoraria are set on a sliding fee scale, based on the host organization’s size, IRS status, and enrollment and/or annual budget.  We adjust our customary fees on a case basis.​