Meet Your Colleagues: Catherine Covington, Grants Manager, SunTrust Bank, Inc., Foundations & Endowments Specialty Practice

Catherine Covington is relatively new to the field of philanthropy, but has clearly hit the ground running.  Soon after graduating from college with a degree in Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Catherine was selected for a year-long fellowship with the Robert W. Woodruff and Joseph B. Whitehead Foundations, two large, well-known, Atlanta-based foundations.  As a fellow, she gained a tremendous amount of exposure to the Atlanta community and learned a lot about the inner workings of foundations.  That experience led to her current role as Grants Manager for SunTrust Bank’s Foundations & Endowments Specialty Practice in 2007. This service of SunTrust Bank dates back to 1959, when it was established to support educational, cultural and human service programs in metropolitan Atlanta.

Catherine’s responsibilities include handling the grants management process for thirty of the bank’s private foundation clients, organizations too small in size to have their own staff, but each with its own unique set of needs.  Although she did have some guidance from a co-worker, she acknowledges that she soon began to feel overwhelmed and nervous about this new role and its responsibilities. Luckily, her supervisor recognized Catherine’s need to access resources outside the bank and recommended that she attend MicroEdge GIFTS training and the annual conference of the Grants Managers Network (GMN).

While Catherine left Atlanta feeling unsure, she came back with confidence, new knowledge and ideas, and access to grants management best practices.  She discovered resources like the salary survey and the Staffing Grants Management publication, which have both been instrumental in educating SunTrust about the importance of the grants management function and its significance for their private foundation clients.

Since that first conference, Catherine has participated in regional GMN meetings and has developed a network of peers with whom she can share best practices.  Catherine has enjoyed being a mentor to a new grants manager (who attended her first GMN conference this year!) and letting someone else in on the secrets to her success.  She has tremendous enthusiasm and is grateful for all she has gained professionally from being a part of GMN for the past two years and looks forward to actively participating in its continued growth in the years to come.

We are grateful for our exceptional members like Catherine.