Asset-Based Community Development Institute

Michael S. Marcus currently serves as Program Director for Older Adult Services at The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in North America, and the second largest funder in the field of aging in the US. The Foundation provides support through operating, program and capital grants to nonprofit organizations focusing on those living in poverty, especially older adults.

Between 1983 and 1990 Michael was the Associate Director for Community Resources a national foundation based in Washington and Boston which funded advocacy programs run by and for older adults. Michael then served as senior program officer for the Chicago Community Trust from 1990 to 2004, where his area of responsibility was basic human needs, which included aging, welfare-to-work, homelessness, and food security among other areas.

Prior to The Weinberg Foundation, Michael was principal of Consultants for Community Resources, a Chicago-based organization that provided advocacy and consultation in the areas of aging, poverty, and community development. CCR applied an asset based approach to its projects which included work with rural, urban and suburban counties seeking ways to use the gifts of its older adult citizens, with colleges and universities looking for new ways to effectively build an asset based community and with social service agencies working to overcome their needs based approach to service delivery. While at CCR Michael served as a faculty member of the Leadership Practice.

Michael is a graduate of George Washington University, has an MSW from the University of Maryland School of Social Work, where he currently teaches, and has done Ph.D. work at the Florence Heller School for Social Welfare Policy, Center on Aging, at Brandeis University.

Besides the University of Maryland Michael has taught at Springfield College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Illinois Institute of Technology and Northwestern University where he continues to serve as a national faculty member of the Asset Based Community Development Institute.

Michael is a founder and a past Board member of Grantmakers in Aging, as well as a Board member of the American Society on Aging, Generations United and Generations on Line. He has also been a member of many public commissions and panels.

Most importantly Michael has two sons and a daughter in-law 19, 25 and 27, of whom he is very proud.