Sean O’Donnell

Sean currently serves as the Executive Director of Foundation for Recovery and is a person living in recovery from substance use disorder. He grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he studied public relations and project management. During graduate school, Sean lost two close friends to the disease of addiction. Soon afterward he became involved with several nonprofit and national advocacy organizations working to curb opioid overdose deaths. Prior to coming to Nevada, Sean worked for the Steve Rummler HOPE Network (SRHN) throughout grad school where he was actively supporting their advocacy, prescriber education, and overdose prevention programs. In this role, he traveled to counties across Minnesota and trained people on how to recognize and respond to an opioid overdose. He helped secure funding for naloxone and raised awareness of various harm reduction strategies through numerous events, advancing the organization’s reach and capacity. While at SRHN, the organization passed landmark legislation, organized marches in Washington D.C., and developed novel programming to survey and help the state. Sean was eventually promoted to the Director of Programs and assisted the Executive Director with all operations, working tirelessly to expand access to free continuing education on the topics of substance use disorder and pain management for prescribers and increased availability of the opioid overdose antidote, naloxone, in lay communities. Through his state-wide advocacy, he helped build and work with grassroots coalitions to support recovery policies that get through the Minnesota legislature. He also was engaged with and/or is currently collaborating with The FED UP! Coalition; Physicians for Responsible Prescribing Open Recovery; and The Voices Project.

Whether it’s through working with the media, designing campaigns, building websites, Sean lends his skills to further the recovery movement and highlight individuals and organizations making a difference in their community. As a strategic communicator and marketer, Sean values the power of telling transformative stories and believes many of us have more in common than we believe. He is deeply interested in massive open online learning and how technology can engage and bridge education in communities across the world. He hopes to continue studying how social and behavioral change communication can improve public health, challenge stigmas, and make our communities a healthier and safer place to live. His educational background is in public relations and project management. In graduate school, he studied technical and scientific communications, mostly working on projects and research which involved online education, user experience design, web development, and software engineering. His goal is to complete a Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) program and devote his life to helping his peers, people with substance use disorder and mental illness.

Sean has been with Foundation for Recovery since June 2019 and possesses the leadership skills to take an already dynamic organization to new heights.