The Associate Director plays a crucial role in developing and managing MJFF’s grant management system (the Grant Portal) and integrating it with other platforms to capture data reliability and improve workflows for both internal and external stakeholders.
About Us:
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) was founded in 2000 with one clear objective: accelerating meaningful therapeutic advances and, ultimately, a cure for Parkinson’s disease (PD). The Foundation applies extraordinary scientific, business and media assets to this singular focus—thus creating a unique and dynamic organization. Since inception, MJFF has quickly grown into the largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson’s disease research, having funded over $1.5 billion in research projects in both academic and industry labs worldwide.
Core to our philosophy is how we think of our capital and its risk profile relative to other stakeholders in the drug development pipeline. We work aggressively to de-risk various therapeutic strategies and tools in the hopes of building a robust pipeline of new treatments for patients. In order to achieve our mission of finding a cure for PD it is critical that we engage with and bring together members of the PD community including researchers, physicians, health professionals and most important, people with Parkinson's and their families.
We believe that to find a cure for PD as quickly as possible, our capital needs to push research forward today—we therefore deliberately hold no endowment or excessive reserves. We instead seek to deploy funds raised as quickly and wisely as possible. MJFF raises over $100 million annually. Today, the Foundation has approximately 200 full-time employees. We offer a collegial and collaborative environment where optimistic problem-solvers and entrepreneurial, resourceful individuals can thrive and make a tangible difference for millions of people living with Parkinson’s disease.
Position Summary:
The Associate Director, Research Operations, sits on the Systems, Analytics, and Processes (SAP) unit of the Research Operations team and reports to the Director, Research Operations. The position is a hybrid position.
Primary Duties and Responsibilities:
- Ensure day-to-day needs in the Grant Portal are being met, including triaging staff support tickets using Zendesk; work closely with the SAP team on data integrity, template management, workflow development and coordinating support with our external vendor.
- Work closely with the Grantmaking team on configuring the Grant Portal for application intake and application reviews; work closely with teams to ensure alignment between the funding program materials and the Grant Portal in terms of requirements, documents, instructions, etc.; oversee administrative review process and training; and stay involved throughout entire funding opportunity process to ensure the system is meeting needs for triage reviews, full proposal reviews, review meetings, pulling critiques, etc.
- Working closely with internal stakeholders, identify gaps and areas for improvement in the Grant Portal; support the creation of new workflows, fields, reports, application types, etc.
- Support efforts to train and build staff capacity on Research team systems, especially the Grant Portal; oversee Grant Portal trainings for new and existing staff.
- Manage the creation of external stakeholder Grant Portal guidance content; solicit feedback from external users on using the Grant Portal and pain points; explore and assess different vehicles for delivering content (i.e., webinars, guidance manual, Grant Portal onscreen instructions, etc.); create content.
- Work with teams across Research to standardize, streamline, and document their processes.
Qualifications and Skills:
- 4-6 years of relevant work experience, including experience in grant management, systems management and research operations, with measurable success and achievement.
- Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree preferred.
- Interest and experience in systems and process development.
- Excellent project management skills.
- Must possess strong interpersonal skills, the capacity to work independently and collaboratively as part of a team, and excellent oral and written communication skills.
Vaccine Statement:
At The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), the health and safety of our team and our community is a priority. MJFF has made the decision to require all staff receive the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment. Successful applicants for this position must be fully vaccinated by date of hire and proof of vaccine is required. Full vaccination is defined as two weeks after both doses of two-dose vaccine or two weeks after a single-dose vaccine has been administered. Anyone unable to be vaccinated, because of medical or religious reasons, can request a reasonable accommodation for consideration.
How to Apply:
Interested candidates should submit a resume and thoughtful cover letter describing their specific qualifications and interest in the position. Applicants who best match the position's needs will be contacted.
MJFF is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage applications from individuals who will contribute to our efforts to build and support a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce. Diversity may refer to characteristics including, but not limited to, race, religion, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic circumstance, geographic background, ability and disability, political ideology and age.