Colin Dwyer started his career in healthcare venture capital investments, drawn to organizations working to improve lives and better communities. Today, he uses his business acumen to aggregate private funds for nonprofits dedicated to addressing one of the deadliest public health epidemics of our times: the opioid crisis. In 2018, he founded the Overdose Crisis Response Fund (OCRF), which helps identify funding for community-based overdose response organizations across the U.S. The OCRF has helped fund the distribution of hundreds of thousands of doses of life-saving naloxone to programs in 17 states to date.
“…When you bring basic business expertise to a mission that hasn’t already gotten a lot of attention, the low-hanging fruit for tangible impact, even directly life-saving impact, can be pretty incredible,” Colin says. In recovery himself, Colin discovered his passion for helping others mid-career, pivoting from venture capital to advising overdose prevention organizations in Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founding OCRF has empowered Colin to broaden his reach and build a funding model that can be replicated to achieve his mission: “To save as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible, from overdose.”
Colin has shared his dedication to changing lives with the Stanford community, co-teaching a course in the Stanford Law School’s Law and Policy Lab and serving as a Social Entrepreneur in Residence at the GSB from 2019 to 2020. He encourages other alumni to get involved and be a catalyst for change. “Through his nonprofit, Colin has helped humanize the epidemic, fund life-saving prevention work, and provide financial relief to community leaders,” says Lina Bankert, MBA ’05.
Recently, Colin expanded the OCRF’s work to Ukraine, noting, “Heroes on the front line of the overdose crisis have been doing battle for so long with so little that they are absolutely stunned when someone shows up to help them in a substantial way.”
