Chris Nehls is Special Policy Advisor at the American Governance Institute, a non-profit organization focused on strengthening the institutions of American government.

For more than a decade, Chris Nehls has contributed to the democracy reform field as a writer, strategic thinker, and organization builder. He developed the inaugural strategic plan for the Democracy Fund’s Governance Initiative, the blueprint for its subsequent tens of millions of dollars in grantmaking in democratic institutional reform, transparency, and political depolarization. As a program officer, he also provided essential early funding to several nonprofits and projects that improved the technological capacity, knowledge base, and funding of the Legislative branch.

Chris joined AGI after working with Demand Progress and the POPVOX Foundation, contributing to the leading congressional newsletter the First Branch Forecast and providing strategic planning and project support. He continues to write about philanthropy’s role in democracy reform and the future of the field in his Now What? Substack. He also serves on the board of the Hunter Index, a not-for-profit news organization that tracks and reports on the financial holdings of members of Congress and government officials.

Before joining the nonprofit field, Chris worked at CQ Roll Call as a researcher, contributing writer, and founding editor of its digital advocacy blog. He also launched a smart cities newsletter for FierceMarkets and blogged about college football for the Economist. 

Chris earned three degrees from the University of Virginia including a PhD in U.S. History, focusing on early 20th Century political culture and nationalism. He taught U.S. and East Asian History courses at several colleges.