Responsibilities
- Own the overall grant funding strategy across therapeutic categories (anterior segment, retina, glaucoma, dry eye, refractive, etc.)
- Develop and maintain relationships with medical education professionals, IME contacts, and industry grant reviewers
- Stay “ear to the ground” regarding supporter priorities, RFP cycles, therapeutic focus shifts, and competitive landscape
- Translate market intelligence into proactive educational concepts before formal RFP release
- Partner with executive leadership to forecast educational capacity and program sustainability based on grant funding cycles and therapeutic-area alignment
- Serve as the primary safeguard of educational independence, ensuring that all grant-funded initiatives are developed independently of the organization’s commercial sales and marketing influence, in strict accordance with ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence
- Lead development of high-quality, compliant, and strategically differentiated grant proposals
- Lead the synthesis of proprietary audience insights, clinical literature, and real-world evidence to draft 'high-science' Needs Assessments that define urgent clinical practice gaps for ODs and MDs
- Ensure alignment between proposal narrative, educational design, and measurable outcomes strategy
- Collaborate cross-functionally to gather accurate program data, timelines, faculty plans, and measurement frameworks
- Establish repeatable internal systems that allow us to scale to 10+ high-quality submissions per quarter
- Refine templates, messaging frameworks, and positioning to improve win rates over time
- Conduct proactive gap analyses using survey data, publication insights, and therapeutic intelligence
- Partner with content, events, and clinical teams to shape fundable programming concepts
- Build and maintain relationships with key opinion leaders in the optometry and ophthalmology communities
- Ensure learning objectives and format decisions are aligned with both educational science and supporter priorities
- Protect educational independence while ensuring commercial viability
- Provide strategic input on curriculum structure, delivery format, and faculty selection
- Design and elevate outcomes measurement strategy (up to Level 5 outcomes where appropriate)
- Ensure polling, pre/post testing, and post-event evaluations are aligned with meaningful data collection
- Collaborate on data analysis to produce high-impact outcomes reports with actionable insights
- Review and refine reports to ensure clarity, compliance, and alignment with supporter expectations
- Continuously improve reporting templates and narrative storytelling around educational impact
- Ensure all grant activity aligns with ACCME, COPE, and relevant industry standards
- Maintain working knowledge of transparency guidelines and separation of education and promotion
- Serve as internal advisor on grant compliance best practices
- Help build documentation systems that reduce institutional risk
- Build scalable grant tracking systems (pipeline visibility, submission timelines, renewal cycles)
- Collaborate closely with Content, Events, Clinical Review, Client Services, and Executive Leadership
- Create quarterly grant forecasts and retrospective win/loss analysis
- Establish clear internal rhythms: concept ideation → proposal development → submission → award → reporting → renewal
Requirements
- 7–10+ years experience in independent medical education (IME), CME/CE grant development, or pharmaceutical medical education roles, or are an established clinician who has experience with independent medical education
- Demonstrated experience securing educational grant funding from pharmaceutical or medical device companies
- Strong understanding of ACCME and/or COPE compliance frameworks
- Experience designing or contributing to outcomes measurement strategies
- Proven ability to build and maintain industry relationships
- Strong executive-level writing and communication skills
- Experience managing multiple concurrent grant cycles and deadlines
- Comfortable working with technology tools and project management systems
- Highly organized with strong attention to detail
Nice to Have
- Existing relationships with eyecare-focused pharmaceutical or device grant teams
- Experience improving grant win rates through template or messaging refinement
- Experience collaborating on Level 4–5 outcomes reporting
- Familiarity with survey-based needs assessments and educational gap analysis
- Experience working in a fast-growing, entrepreneurial healthcare media or education company
Work Arrangement
Remote (City/Region)
Additional Information
- Do not like to travel, attend in-person meetings, and develop relationships
- Want a job that is primarily administrative grant writing without strategic ownership
- Avoid funding conversations or feel uneasy being accountable for funding outcomes
- Struggle to balance commercial awareness with strict educational compliance
- Need highly structured instructions rather than building systems from scratch
- Prefer siloed work instead of partnering across content, clinical, events, and leadership teams
- Dislike negotiation, nuance, or healthy debate in high-stakes funding conversations
- Want predictable, repetitive work rather than evolving strategy tied to shifting pharma priorities
