Jean Marie Donovan (April 10, 1953 – December 2, 1980) was an American lay missionary who was beaten, raped, and murdered along with three fellow missionaries—Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel—by members of the military of El Salvador in 1980.

[1] Upon the completion of her master's degree in business from Case Western Reserve University,[1] she accepted a position as a management consultant for the Cleveland branch of the nationwide accounting firm, Arthur Andersen.

The pair worked in the parish of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in La Libertad, providing help to refugees of the Salvadoran Civil War and the poor.

In 2018, Paul Baumann of LaCroix International revealed that he had recently discovered that he had been Jean Donovan's classmate in high school, and he shared that while he had no memory of her personally, upon looking into the old history of his school he was surprised to find that Donovan had been in numerous sports teams, extracurricular activities, Girl Scouts, an equestrian club and volunteer work; Baumann also noted that she had a bronze memorial that he had come upon at his childhood church, the Church of the Assumption in Westport, Connecticut, and that a documentary film had been made of her life that he had recently seen.

[4] The Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education offers the Jean Donovan Fellowship, a financial award of US$3,000 "in grant funding to recipients who work a minimum of 35-40 hours/week with a non-profit organization."

Friar Liam Power of The Association of Catholic Priests, in 2020, released a sermon titled "‘They Don’t Shoot Blond, Blue-Eyed Americans’:Remembering Jean Donovan on the 40th Anniversary of her Martyrdom."

The murders of Jean and of her three companions jolted the American public and led to strong debate about foreign policy in Central America and government support for repressive regimes."