Claire Kaplan
Throughout this year, we will be highlighting individuals or groups that have impacted our work over the last 50 years.
Claire Kaplan
Former POV Volunteer, Board member, and staff member
I always like to say that I was an accidental volunteer at POV—although then it was the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women. In 1983 (more or less), I was planning to meet my friend Linda BloomBecker, at LACAAW’s booth at the Westwood Crafts Fair. Linda was a LACAAW volunteer at the time. I arrived at the booth at the predetermined time, but no Linda. This was decades before the advent of the cell phone, so found out later that she was ill and couldn’t make it. But this turned out to be a fortuitous event, as I ended up chatting with Krysia Dankowski, who convinced me to fill out the volunteer application form! It’s a cliché to say that the rest is history but in my case, the cliché is true. After training to be a hotline advocate, I realized that I had found my activist home—one that allowed me to engage in work that combined all my passions: gender, race and economic justice, empowering survivors, the creative arts, and preventing harm. Several times the LACAAW staff invited me to apply for various jobs that opened up but I was determined to remain a volunteer and continue working in the film industry, so that if I did start to burn out, I could step back. That didn’t happen.
Soon I joined the Advisory Board, then the Board of Directors, then I realized that my future was here, and I joined the staff as Director of Training and Outreach. When my housemate, Jennifer Owens Brown (whom I met while training as a volunteer), joined the staff as Director of Development, we collaborated on a number of projects: staging the Humanitarian Awards with Joseph Megel, producing Comedy Night at the Comedy Store, and a benefit concert for LACAAW and El Rescate with performers such as Sabia and Bonnie Raitt.
I’m especially proud of some of the programs I helped initiate, including the first Deaf hotline advocate training and helping elevate LACAAW’s visibility as a pioneer in Deaf survivor support with all the wonderful Deaf volunteers. I also met my wife, Lisa, as a result of this work. This October we will celebrate 35th years together, and our 8th wedding anniversary.
My work at LACAAW led me to similar work in Washington, DC and then in Charlottesville, Virginia, where I ran the gender violence program at the University of Virginia Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center for nearly 29 years, providing both prevention education and victim advocacy. Since my retirement in 2020, I have continued this work as a consultant on Title IX/Sexual Misconduct in higher education, co-host a podcast with Katie Koestner, “Dear Katie: Survivor Stories”, and writing a guidebook for parents and friends of survivors that demystifies Title IX policy and how college campuses address these issues.