“Sisu” is a word that Finnish people use to describe the national character. It roughly translates to “guts,” but it’s honestly not as much about bravery as it is about determination, especially in the face of odds that can seem impossible. Fending off an invasion of a country 30 times your size in a subarctic winter: Sisu. Rising from your origins as a pulp-and-paper country to become a hub for tech innovation: Sisu. My quest to finally make a perfect lattice pie: Maybe also sisu.
Hi, I’m Laura Olin. I help causes1 and companies2 use technology to build relationships with the people they want to reach.
I’ve shaped the voice of President Obama’s3 digital communications, raised millions of dollars for non-profits, and run record-breaking engagement programs.
My big secret:4 Build programs that people actually want to hear from, and grow communities they feel proud to be a part of.
Want to talk about what you’re working on?5 Get in touch at [email protected].
“Laura Olin helped the DLCC and me create a digital presence which established the Democratic comeback narrative around our 30+ flips of Republican seats in 2017.”
— Jessica Post, Executive Director of the DLCC
Maybe you’d like to up your game—or get it going in the first place. Set a strategy to reach your goals, then identify the right tools and tactics to absolutely crush them.
Raise more money with data-driven, delightful-as-heck programs that deepen relationships with your audience at every step, from calendars to page flows.
Tune up your existing social media program or launch a brand new one. Find a compelling voice, create content that gets shared, and make the most of big moments.
Get help planning and executing your launch, big moment, or new campaign with creative strategies to reach your target audience on the right platforms.
As the re-election campaign’s first digital staffer, I helped set our digital strategy and establish the campaign’s voice online, from email to the website and social media. The program I helped shape went on to raise $690 million for the President’s re-election and recruit millions of volunteers.
I also ran the campaign’s social media strategy—everything from the @BarackObama Twitter handle to the campaign’s Facebook pages and the campaign’s Tumblr. My team helped shape what campaigns look like on social, grew our followings by 40 million, and created the most-shared Twitter and Facebook posts in history on election night.
I’ve helped clients of all sizes and missions plan and run engaging, effective fundraising programs to raise millions of dollars from thousands of donors.
Some recent highlights: Performing an assessment of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee’s fundraising program in 2015 and helping them re-tool to break their previous records and helping the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee rethink its tone and messaging to break out of a burn-it-down fundraising trap.
Meet Hope: An SMS-based political advisor to help you turn your anxiety over the news into advocacy. I joined the team at Purpose, a tech agency and incubator, to take an innovative idea and make it come to life with a unique editorial voice and compelling user experiences ahead of the service’s launch in the fall of 2017.
Hope launched with positive reviews from outlets ranging from CNN to PopSugar, won a 2018 Webby, and continues to drive hundreds of actions every week.
The JFK Library has a challenge all presidential institutions will eventually face: How to engage a generation of young people with the values of a president they have no living memory of.
First up, we assessed and refreshed the Foundation’s social media presences to help reach target audiences with optimized formats and a more natural voice. Then we set up a focused social and email program around one specific Foundation initiative: getting more supporter nominations for the Library’s Profile in Courage Award. In our first year of working together, we increased nominations to 900; in our second, over 4,000.
In the fall of 2014, I launched an email list with the intention of playing with theme and format every week to see how far the medium could stretch. I called the project Everything Changes.
Over three years, Everything Changes gained thousands of subscribers, generated earned media in The Atlantic and The Guardian, and became a part of the online publication The Awl while dispensing facts about Dolly Parton, collecting a map of memory bombs, exchanging advice, generating a Thought Clock, and a lot more. I retired it in September 2017.
