Marcus Weiss is President of Economic Development Assistance Consortium (EDAC), a national consulting firm specializing in community revitalization initiatives and social enterprises. In addition to undertaking frequent technical assistance, evaluation and grantsmanship assignments for federal grantees, he has served as a contractor to federal agencies analyzing innovative approaches for community development finance capitalization, securitization and the leveraging of supplemental private sector resources. Subsequent to growing up in the family grocery business, Marcus Weiss has also aided governmental and foundation grantees in the development of food hubs, core neighborhood supermarkets/public markets, food trucks, aquaponics, community farms and restaurants as well as manufacturing incubators and retail districts.
Mr. Weiss served as a co-designer of the “matching” OCS/Ford Foundation demonstration to fund CDC-sponsored public markets and as a co-founder and incorporating board member of Boston’s Southwest Corridor Community Farm. He also served as a consultant to the National League of Cities, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Commerce. He served on the Department of Labor’s Community Audit Experts Panel, was a member of the Enterprise Foundation’s Best Practices Database Advisory Board and the Ford Foundation – Public Markets Advisory Group. He has also lectured on community development finance and community economic development for the Radcliffe Institute of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Mr. Weiss was a board member and officer of the city’s Boston Housing Development Corporation II. He previously served as the chairman of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s (MBA) Urban Development Committee and vice-chairman of the MBA’s Property Law Council. He holds a law degree from Boston University School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the American University School of Government.
Selected books and publications authored by Mr. Weiss:
- Building Partnerships Between State TANF Initiatives and CDCs – A Guidebook for Practitioners and State Officials, CDC best practices handbook developed for HHS/OCS.
- Rethinking National Economic Development Policy, a study prepared for the U.S. Department of Commerce, (co-investigator with Bennett Harrison).
- Workforce Development Networks: Community-Based Organizations and Regional Alliances, published by Sage Publications, Inc. in 1997, (co-author with Bennett Harrison).
- Building Bridges: Community Development Corporations and the World of Employment Training, a Ford Foundation publication, January 1995, (co-author with Bennett Harrison and Jon Gant).
- Community Reinvestment Act: How to Implement Your Bank’s Program, Sheshunoff Information Services, Inc., (co-author with Jerome and Nena Groskind).
- A Banker’s Quick Reference Guide to Small Business Incubators (The Massachusetts Bankers Association Minority Business and Economic Development Task Force).
- Community Reinvestment Act: Access to Development Capital/Operating in a Changing Regulatory Environment (Mass. Continuing Legal Education, Inc.), editor.
- Filling the Lending Vacuum, Shelterforce, Summer 2011.
- Trends for Funding CDC Commercial Projects, Shelterforce, September/October 2003.