The Work

The work of Carol Marak LLC is a solo aging education, planning, and advocacy company dedicated to helping independent adults prepare for a secure, healthy, connected, and purposeful future—especially those aging without nearby family support.

Founded by Carol Marak, a nationally recognized solo aging strategist, speaker, author, and founder of the Elder Orphan Facebook Group, the company addresses one of the most overlooked demographic shifts in aging: the growing number of adults who are navigating later life without a spouse, partner, children, or dependable family advocate. Through practical education, assessment tools, workshops, peer groups, and professional partnerships, Carol Marak LLC helps individuals and organizations move from crisis-driven aging to proactive life planning.

At the center of the company’s work is the Life Plan Assessment, a structured planning tool that helps adults identify risks and strengths across essential life domains, including health, housing, transportation, finances, legal readiness, social connection, support networks, faith and spirituality, life purpose, and meaningful engagement. The assessment gives individuals a clear starting point for building a more resilient aging plan and helps professionals better understand where their clients, residents, or members may be vulnerable. Carol’s website describes the Life Plan Assessment as a process for identifying retirement and aging-related risks that can disrupt peace of mind, health, and long-term security.

Carol Marak LLC serves older adults, solo agers, senior centers, life plan communities, financial advisors, elder law attorneys, senior living providers, care managers, Medicare and healthcare organizations, nonprofits, and public-sector leaders. The company’s programs include the Solo and Smart book, the Solo and Smart YouTube channel, the Life Plan Assessment, the Life Plan Companion Workbook, whole-life longevity workshops, peer groups, facilitator training, and licensing opportunities for organizations that want to bring proactive solo aging education to the people they serve. The company’s workshop model is designed to help participants identify aging risks, recognize where they are strong or vulnerable, and use worksheets and guided lessons to create a practical plan of action.

The company’s mission is rooted in a simple but urgent belief: aging alone should not mean aging unsupported. Carol Marak LLC equips adults to redefine independence—not as doing everything alone, but as intentionally building the right structures, relationships, documents, services, and professional guidance before a crisis occurs. This philosophy is especially important because solo agers are often overlooked by traditional aging systems, public programs, and family-centered care models. Carol’s white paper, Aging Alone in America—From Public Burden to Strategic Breakthrough, argues that proactive planning can reduce downstream pressure on healthcare, housing, long-term care, nonprofits, employers, and public benefit systems.

Carol Marak LLC also advocates for broader systems change. The company encourages policymakers, nonprofits, senior-serving organizations, and employers to recognize solo aging as a strategic priority rather than a private problem. Carol’s work highlights the need for measurable, relationship-based, and human-centered solutions to social isolation, loneliness, unplanned care needs, housing instability, and lack of informal support. Her white paper on isolation and loneliness calls for accountable, community-based approaches that are designed with older adults, not merely for them.

Through speaking, consulting, educational products, and strategic partnerships, Carol Marak LLC helps people and organizations simplify the complexities of aging alone. The company stands at the intersection of longevity planning, aging services, community support, and public awareness—helping adults build confidence, helping professionals identify risk earlier, and helping communities prepare for a future where more people will age without traditional family safety nets.

Carol Marak LLC is committed to transforming solo aging from a source of fear and uncertainty into a structured, empowered, and well-supported life plan.