Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals
Updated Jul 28, 2026
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a U.S. nonprofit, nonpartisan civil-liberties organization that defends constitutional rights through litigation, legislative advocacy, public education, communications, and grassroots organizing. It operates nationally through the ACLU and ACLU Foundation plus a network of autonomous state, D.C., and Puerto Rico affiliates. The organization says it does not accept government funding and is supported by member dues, individual contributions, bequests, and private-foundation grants.
Primary product
Public-interest civil-rights advocacy: constitutional litigation, legislative lobbying, public education, strategic communications, and grassroots mobilization (including the People Power platform).
Founded
1920
Headquarters
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004, United States
Team size
695 national staff; 2,175 staff network-wide in 2025, including 1,480 affiliate staff
Work style
Hybrid
31 jobs at ACLU
Industry
Nonprofit organizations
Sub-industry
Civil rights and civil liberties; public-interest law; advocacy
Offices
Business model
Stage
Nonprofit; not venture-backed
Leadership
Chief Executive Officer / Executive Director
Deborah N. Archer
President, National Board of Directors
Deputy Executive Director for Operations and General Counsel
Deputy Executive Director for Program, Strategy, and Culture
National Legal Director
Kriston Alford McIntosh
Chief Communications and Marketing Officer
Deirdre Schifeling
Chief Political and Advocacy Officer
Mark Wier
Chief Development Officer
Kary L. Moss
National Director of Affiliate Support and Nationwide Initiatives
Esete Assefa
Chief Political Advisor
Founders
Albert DeSilver
Co-founder (historical)
Crystal Eastman
Co-founder / founding mother (historical)
Roger Nash Baldwin
Founding director / first executive director (historical)
Mission-driven, equity-oriented, collaborative, and explicitly focused on defending rights through integrated litigation, policy, organizing, communications, and technology. The technology organization emphasizes privacy, security, accessibility, algorithmic fairness, accountability, and transparency.
Work style
Hybrid
Compensation
Salary-transparent compensation with geographic pay bands tied to work-location regions. Public 2026 technology postings listed New York examples of approximately $167,568 for Senior Data Engineer and $196,369 for Data Architect/DevOps Engineering Manager-level work; regional adjustments may apply. Public postings did not establish a general visa-sponsorship policy.
Benefits
Pricing
No conventional commercial pricing. Membership and donations are voluntary; some merchandise is sold through the ACLU store. Legal assistance is generally provided through local affiliates rather than sold as a priced product.
Differentiators
Technology
Customers
Competitors
Estimated revenue
$500M–$600M consolidated annual support and revenue; FY2025 consolidated ACLU and Foundation support and revenue was $554,573,397. This figure excludes affiliate activity and is not commercial revenue.
Estimated monthly visits
1.9M
The ACLU reported an external legal-services risk: a federal contract supporting representation for thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children was expected to expire after months of withheld payments and demands for sensitive client information. This is not an announced ACLU shutdown or layoff, but could increase demand for ACLU-affiliate legal work and strain the broader immigration-rights ecosystem.
SourceACLU · Jul 2026
The Ninth Circuit rejected mandatory immigration detention without bond hearings in a case involving the ACLU and aligned with decisions from other federal appellate courts and hundreds of district judges.
ACLU · Jul 2026
ACLU affiliates reported 54 Federal Tort Claims Act claims across 17 states and Washington, D.C., alleging violence, abuse, neglect, and other misconduct by federal law-enforcement agents.
ACLU · Jul 2026
The ACLU’s Agents of Chaos and Cruelty report examined more than 1,200 immigration-enforcement incidents in eight states and identified more than 400 incidents involving misconduct, including racial profiling, physical force, and chemical irritants.
ACLU · Jul 2026
Florida officials paused plans to designate CAIR and CAIR-Florida under new state laws after the ACLU, SPLC, and partners sued, arguing that the regime threatens protected speech, association, due process, and the organizations’ ability to operate.
American Civil Liberties Union · Jul 2026
Announced the ACLU's largest-ever electoral investment for a midterm, a $25.5 million campaign to defend reproductive freedom, voting rights, and democracy through state-level races and ballot initiatives.