Michael has over 30 years of experience as a grant maker, manager, organizer, trainer and facilitator working with organizations, government agencies, universities and foundations in the fields of aging, disability, homelessness, food security, housing, child welfare and poverty. His work is guided by the principles of Asset-Based Community Development. His goal is to enhance the efforts of communities to ensure that all residents live lives of meaning, safety and comfort. His mission is to help people recognize that all individuals are assets to their communities.
Michael is a national faculty member of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at DePaul University. The ABCD Institute is at the center of a large and growing movement that considers local assets as the primary building blocks of sustainable community development. As part of the ABCD Institute Michael has facilitated asset mapping, strategic planning and led training programs of residents, public officials, businesspeople, health providers including hospitals and others on the use of ABCD as an effective tool for community building. Much of Michael’s ABCD work has worked specifically on issues related to aging in community.
Michael also serves as Principal of Consultants for Community Resources which provides advocacy and consultation in the areas of aging, poverty, and community development. At CCR Michael has worked with a wide array of clients including : Alzheimer’s Disease International, American Institutes for Research, El Valor of Chicago, Episcopal Charities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the International Psychogeriatric Association, Jewish Family Service of the North Shore, Jubilee Ministries, Mercy Hospital Miami, Montgomery County, PA Community Foundation, North Penn Community Health Foundation, Rockford College, Steele County Minnesota, Strategic Philanthropy, and the University of Kentucky Center on Aging.
From 2007 until 2016 Michael led the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation’s groundbreaking work serving older adults and caregivers. The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation is the largest funder in the field of aging in the United States.
Between 1983 and 1990, Michael was Associate Director for Community Resources with the Villers Foundation, now known as Families USA. Michael then served as Older Adult Program Officer for the Chicago Community Trust from 1990 to 2004, where his area of responsibility was basic human needs including aging, welfare-to-work, homelessness, and food security.
Michael is a graduate of George Washington University, has an MSW from the University of Maryland School of Social Work, and has done Ph.D. work at the Florence Heller School for Social Welfare Policy, Center on Aging, at Brandeis University.
He has also taught at Springfield College, the University of Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, and the University of Baltimore. Michael is a founder and a past board member of Grantmakers in Aging, as well as a former board member of the American Society on Aging. He currently serves on the boards of Generations on Line, and Community Partnership of Raleigh. Michael recently served on the boards of Generations United, Citizens Planning and Housing Association, and the Mount Royal Improvement Association, as a member of the Baltimore Commission on Aging, and on the Board of Overcoming Poverty Together, an international microfinance organization working primarily in Indonesia, among many other boards and public commissions. He is a very frequent presenter at conferences and gatherings in the field of aging and asset-based approaches to community development.
Michael lives in Raleigh, NC with his wife and dog.
Facebook page: Consultants for Community Resources
Contact Information:
mmarcus@communityresources.guru
(847) 571-1802
www.ccr.guru
Pronouns: Him, His, and He