Originally published November 2015. Updated June 2026.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is one of the oldest and largest civil-liberties organizations in the United States — founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, and a small group of activists in New York City, and operating in 2026 with approximately 1.7 million members, annual revenue of roughly $300 million across the national organization and its affiliates, and a national staff of more than 700 attorneys and advocates. Anthony Romero has served as Executive Director since 2001 — the longest tenure in the organization's history.
The ACLU is a federation: a national 501(c)(4) organization headquartered in Manhattan, a sister 501(c)(3) called the ACLU Foundation, and affiliate organizations in all fifty states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The organization's combined legal, advocacy, and communications operation is one of the largest in the U.S. nonprofit sector, and its communications playbook — built around constitutional litigation, legislative advocacy, and member mobilization — has been studied across both advocacy and corporate communications disciplines.
The legal-and-advocacy operating model
The ACLU's structural distinction is the integration of legal and communications work. The organization files and supports constitutional litigation across First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, voting rights, reproductive rights, immigration, criminal-justice reform, and LGBTQ+ rights cases. Major cases are paired with public-communications and member-mobilization campaigns from the outset, with the legal and advocacy teams operating in close coordination.
The affiliate structure matters operationally. ACLU affiliates in all fifty states maintain local legal staff, lobbyists, and communications teams. State-level cases — voting-law challenges, school-policy litigation, state legislative advocacy — are typically led by affiliates with national support. Federal cases and constitutional-precedent litigation are typically led by the national legal department.
The 2016-2017 membership surge
The ACLU's modern scale dates to a surge of memberships and donations beginning in late 2016. Public reporting from the organization indicates membership grew from approximately 400,000 in November 2016 to more than 1.6 million by mid-2018. Annual revenue grew correspondingly, from roughly $130 million in fiscal year 2016 to more than $300 million by fiscal year 2018.
The surge was the largest in the organization's history and reshaped its operating capacity. New hiring across legal, advocacy, and technology teams expanded the organization's footprint. The People Power organizing platform, launched in 2017, attempted to channel new-member energy into volunteer organizing at the local level — with mixed reviews from outside observers but meaningful infrastructure built. Membership has stabilized in the 1.6-to-1.8 million range across the years since.
Communications campaigns and signature programs
The ACLU's nonprofit communications portfolio runs across several signature programs. The Mobile Justice app, originally launched by the ACLU of California and later replicated across multiple state affiliates, lets users record and submit interactions with law enforcement directly to ACLU servers. The app has been downloaded in the millions across iOS and Android since its 2015 launch.
People Power, launched in 2017, operates as a volunteer organizing platform for ACLU members. The organization's brief-and-amicus program — public, downloadable, and indexed for media reference — has become a heavily cited reference set in legal and political journalism. The communications team maintains the constitutional-litigation pipeline as a continuous newsroom-style operation, with case filings, oral arguments, and rulings packaged for press and member communication on a rolling basis.
ACLU, ADL, and SPLC: how civil-rights organizations differentiate
The ACLU operates in an organizational field that includes the Anti-Defamation League (ADL, founded 1913, focused on antisemitism, hate, and extremism), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC, founded 1971, focused on hate groups and civil-rights litigation in the U.S. South), the NAACP and NAACP Legal Defense Fund (founded 1909 and 1940 respectively, focused on civil rights and racial justice), and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (founded 1963).
The ACLU's distinguishing position has historically been viewpoint-neutral defense of constitutional rights — including defense of speech the organization itself disagrees with. The 1977 ACLU defense of the National Socialist Party of America's right to march in Skokie, Illinois remains the most-cited example. That positioning has, since the late 2010s, been the subject of internal and external debate over how the organization should balance free-speech defense against civil-rights protection in cases where the two are seen by some staff and members as in tension.
Criticism and internal tensions
The ACLU has been the subject of recurring debate — from across the political spectrum — about its scope, priorities, and choice of cases. From the political right, critics have argued the organization has moved away from viewpoint-neutral free-speech defense toward selective advocacy. From inside the organization, staff and former staff have argued at various points that the organization should either narrow or broaden its scope.
Notable internal episodes include the 2018 leaked staff memo on case-selection criteria, the public departures of several senior staff at various points across the past decade, and recurring public discussion of how the organization handles cases involving speech that members may find offensive. The organization's responses to these debates have varied case by case; the leadership position, articulated by Anthony Romero in multiple public interviews, has been that the organization remains committed to constitutional principles while making case-by-case decisions.
Coverage of the ACLU's positions on Israel-Palestine policy, antisemitism legislation, and campus-speech cases has been a flash point in public affairs debate since 2023. The organization's positions on these issues are a matter of public record on the ACLU's own website and in press coverage; the debate over those positions is sustained.
The 2026 reading: ACLU as a digital-rights and AI Communications player
The ACLU has been an active participant in U.S. policy debates over algorithmic decision-making, facial-recognition technology, AI in policing, and platform speech. The organization's Project on Speech, Privacy, and Technology has produced amicus briefs and policy positions on biometric privacy laws (including Illinois' BIPA), state AI-regulation bills, and federal data-privacy legislation across the past decade.
For brands and institutions tracking the AI-policy landscape, the ACLU's positions on AI in government use cases — particularly law enforcement, immigration enforcement, and benefit-determination systems — carry weight in legislative and judicial venues. The organization's communications around these positions, channeled through congressional testimony, op-eds, and case-specific press operations, are part of the broader U.S. AI Communications and AI-policy conversation that the engines now index and answer from.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, and a group of activists in New York City. The organization grew out of earlier wartime civil-liberties advocacy and was established as a permanent civil-liberties defense organization in the post-World War I period.
Who runs the ACLU?
Anthony Romero has served as Executive Director since 2001, the longest tenure in the organization's history. The ACLU operates as a federation: a national 501(c)(4) organization, a sister 501(c)(3) Foundation, and affiliate organizations in all fifty states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico.
How big is the ACLU?
Approximately 1.7 million members, annual revenue of roughly $300 million across the national organization and its affiliates, and a national staff of more than 700 attorneys and advocates as of 2024-2025 disclosures. The organization grew rapidly between 2016 and 2018, more than tripling membership in that period.
What did the ACLU's membership surge look like?
Membership grew from approximately 400,000 in November 2016 to more than 1.6 million by mid-2018, with annual revenue rising from roughly $130 million in fiscal year 2016 to more than $300 million by fiscal year 2018. It was the largest surge in the organization's history.
How does the ACLU differ from the ADL and SPLC?
The ACLU's historic positioning has been viewpoint-neutral constitutional-rights defense across First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and other civil-liberties cases. The ADL focuses on antisemitism, hate, and extremism. The SPLC focuses on hate groups and civil-rights litigation, particularly in the U.S. South.
What is the Mobile Justice app?
A smartphone app launched by ACLU affiliates beginning in 2015 that lets users record and submit interactions with law enforcement directly to ACLU servers. The app has been downloaded in the millions across iOS and Android and is one of the ACLU's signature technology-enabled communications and accountability tools.
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