Grace McIlvoy, Grants + Marketing Manager

Grace has been working with Seed Effect since 2018 and presently serves as their Grants + Marketing Manager. However, she first learned about Seed Effect in February of 2016, when she was looking into mission-based companies with foci in sustainable international development for her thesis research. She established a partnership with Seed Effect that continued for the next two and a half years.

Grace traveled to Uganda in 2017 to meet the Seed Effect staff, members, and to see the program in action. She subsequently completed and defended an 88 page thesis that left her knowing the Lord was calling her to pursue this line of work. Shortly after graduating in May of 2018, the Lord provided an opportunity for Grace to join Seed Effect part-time and she transitioned to full-time in January 2019 as their Project Manager. While in that role she assisted in the areas of fundraising, administration, program, and marketing, while overseeing event and trip planning. But as the world changed and Seed Effect, to His glory, has kept growing through it all, she moved into the role of Executive Assistant, where she continued to serve as a utility player, but also got to come alongside Missy and serve as the integrator to her executive. That role became further defined with the start of 2022 as she stepped into her current position as Chief of Staff.

Grace’s heart for, and knowledge of, Christ-centered economic development is a blessing to Seed Effect.

Grace graduated Summa Cum Laude from Elon University in May of 2018 with a BSBA in International Business and a minor in Human Service Studies. While there she was a distinguished Honors Fellow who served on the Honors Advisory Council, was elected into membership of Phi Beta Kappa, and a recipient of the Lumen Prize, the university’s premier award created to celebrate academic achievement and advance research proposals.

Grace and her husband, Ian, reside in Franklin, TN