ISABELLE OHLSON
About Me  

Selected Work
Prison Leavers Project
Resettlement Vision
Video Calling in Prisons Democracy Watch
Ready Now
Strategic Planning Retreat
Photography


Democracy Watch
Human Rights First
Q3 2023 - Q1 2025
Research - Project Management  - Human-Centred Design - Strategic Thinking and Planning
Context
The scale and complexity of legislative activity at both the state and federal levels has become overwhelming, making it increasingly difficult to track and respond effectively. Most existing trackers are narrowly focused on individual issues, limiting their usefulness in addressing the broader landscape. There is a need for a centralised hub that unites advocates working across jurisdictions, enabling greater coordination and shared insight alongside the need to inform and engage the public with clear, accessible information about these legislative developments and their implications.

Solution
This tool exposes legislative trends that restrict civil and human rights and undermine our democratic processes and institutions. Democracy Watch is a hub for engagement on legislative trends and allows advocates, activists, researchers, and other concerned citizens to learn, advocate, and collaborate to work towards a more resilient democracy.

The Democracy Watch tool has made it easier than ever for people to identify, review, and share harmful legislation. With expanded coverage across the entire United States, including both federal and state levels, it has increased its tracking capacity by 900%

What did I do?
I managed project timelines, set priorities, and facilitated cross-functional planning to keep the team on track and ensure timely delivery of key milestones.

I led the team, coordinating across product, engineering, design and program teams to drive progress and ensure alignment through the launch of Democracy Watch, engaging over 2.2K users in it’s first two months of being live. 

I conducted continous rounds of rapid-research and collaborated with engineers, designers and subject matter experts to iterate on product features, improve functionality, and enhance user experiences based on real-time feedback. 

I led stakeholder engagement with regular check-ins, feedback sessions, and strategic alignment sessions.

Impact
Advocates have a clearer insight into the wave of harmful legislation and executive orders sweeping the nation.
The HRF team has been able to scale the amount of bills they track by 900% to cover the whole United States: from Federal to State levels.
2.2k active users In just two months since the soft launch.  



Democracy Watch Homepage


Democracy Watch features a dynamic heatmap of state legislation and an infographic for federal activity, enabling users to explore and track anti-democratic laws across the U.S.Users can filter by topic, location, status, and more to quickly find and analyze legislation of interest.

Find the bills that matter the most to you. Filter by Year, Region, Bills Status, Category, and Sub-Category.


Democracy Watch has basic information about a bill in one place. View the Committee it’s in, the list of sponsors and co-sponsors, the activity of the bill, and more!