Will Nelligan is a serial civic entrepreneur. He has been a founding employee of four major civic enterprises and has helped more than a dozen others as an investor, advisor, and researcher.
He has worked in media, politics, education, financial services, and philanthropy, but is generally focused on two goals: rebuilding community in America and revolutionizing the allocation of philanthropic capital. On a team Will is typically the first person responsible for things like strategy, communications, fundraising, and partnerships. When it’s time to hit the stacks or go into the field, his is the quickest hand in the air.
Will is currently an Expert-in-Residence at New_ Public, helping launch a skunkworks for social technology. He is an advisor to Good Information, Inc., a media company re-engaging Americans in civic life, and Lowell & Associates, a public interest law firm defending fundamental rights. He routinely supports a wide array of local media M&A, and also advises an SWFI-100 family office on civic investments. He serves on the boards of Stranger’s Guide and Beacon Media.
Until 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 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 nearly 100 communities across four states.
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.