Will Nelligan has spent his career building social innovations that strengthen democracy and drive progress in media, education, financial services, and philanthropy.
Will leads partnerships for the League of Labor Voters and Working Class Heroes Fund, two organizations bolstering pro-worker, pro-democracy political candidates across the country. He is Expert-in-Residence at New_ Public, helping launch a mission-centered local social networking platform. He is an advisor to Good Information, Inc., a media holding company re-engaging Americans in civic life, and Lowell & Associates, a public interest law firm defending fundamental rights and the integrity of the legal system. He also serves on the boards of Stranger’s Guide and Beacon Media, and advises an SWFI-100 family office on civic investments.
From 2023 to 2026, Will was Chief Growth Officer at the National Trust for Local News, the pioneering non-profit that he helped transform into one of the country’s largest local media companies. Will was responsible for all corporate development activity (M&A, partnerships, strategy) as well as a $15 million fundraising and investor relations function — up from $5M when he started. Today the National Trust is the primary source of local news in over seventy communities spread out across three states.
Will began his career in politics and has worked in venture capital, film finance, and all kinds of non-profit organizations. His interests are eclectic and his network of people and projects is sprawling. Collaborators have included Blackstone Group, Rap Genius, the Rockefeller Foundation, San Diego’s public workforce system, and Will’s hero, the legendary journalist Bill Moyers.
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Before the National Trust, Will was a managing director at JFI, the social science skunkworks started by hedge fund manager Bobby Jain. He oversaw JFI’s fundraising and strategy work, contributing to projects on concessionary investing, universal basic income, and AI governance. Will also led JFI’s flagship initiative on student loans, combining breakthrough empirical research with the first large-scale effort to pilot a new financing model. Under his leadership, JFI launched pilots with 11 education organizations in seven states, incubated an asset servicing company, and raised more than $20 million.
Before JFI, Will was Chief of Staff at the Robin Hood Foundation. He helped launch Robin Hood’s first major grassroots campaign, dedicated to massively increasing enrollment in SNAP, WIC, and the EITC; built a $50 million fund aimed at improving early learning resources for poor children; and devised No City Limits, a pivotal collaboration with the Gates Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation that pairs breakthrough research on poverty with the practitioners who can implement it in their communities.
Will is proud that his first job was for the U.S. Senate’s HELP Committee and its chairman, Senator Tom Harkin — where he organized over 350 binders of recommendations during the (attempted) reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and drafted forceful but restrained letters to for-profit colleges and student loan servicers.