Senior Director, National Campaigns

The Opportunity

As the nation’s guardian of civil rights and liberties, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) dares to create a more perfect union — beyond one person, party, or side, through its mission “to realize this promise of the United States Constitution for all and expand the reach of its guarantees”.

In a time of unprecedented attacks on civil liberties, the National Political Advocacy Department (NPAD) of the ACLU builds power to achieve an accountable and representative democracy. NPAD seeks a Senior Director of National Campaigns to strategically advance its ambitious goals across Reproductive Freedom, Democracy and Voting Rights, Systemic Equality, Immigration, Trans Justice, Criminal Justice, and Abuse of Power through world class campaigns that activate legislative, administrative, and electoral lever. Partnering across the ACLU, the Senior Director will drive national and federal efforts that support and amplify the priorities of the ACLU and its affiliates.

The Senior Director reports to Deirdre Schifeling, the ACLU’s Chief Political & Advocacy Officer. She leads the powerful National Political Advocacy Department that harnesses formidable political and policy forces to advance the rights of people, especially the marginalized. With urgency, courage, and conviction, NPAD mobilizes the ACLU as a powerful force for justice, fully equipped to meet the urgent challenges facing our democracy.

To meet this moment, the Senior Director of National Campaigns position demands a strategic and visionary campaigner who has the knowledge and know-how to activate, coordinate, and respond to the rapidly changing attacks on civil liberties. Focused on mobilization and movement-building, the Senior Director will guide an experienced team to win legislative and administrative victories and build the ACLU’s power and momentum, making the organization’s grassroots resistance as powerful and effective as its legal advocacy.

The Organization

For over 105 years, the ACLU has defended rights and liberties across the political spectrum using the tools of advocacy, litigation, and campaigning. With affiliates in every state and territory, the organization has a network of over 1.7 million members and a staff of 650.

ACLU leaders have been positioned at the epicenter of the most consequential civil rights battles since the 1960s, from voting rights and reproductive freedom to digital privacy and equal protection. The ACLU is where history is being made, and its legal victories become constitutional precedents that protect millions of Americans.

ACLU has a century-long reputation for principled advocacy. Leaders inherit an organization with unmatched legal expertise, nationwide reach, millions of supporters, and the credibility to challenge power at the highest levels. When marginalized communities face persecution, when dissidents are silenced, when democracy itself is threatened, the ACLU is the strongest line of defense and the brightest beacon of resistance.

The Mandate

Being in leadership at the ACLU requires navigating complex constitutional questions and being on the front lines with colleagues whose voices carry weight in national debates. The organization is formed by brilliant lawyers, advocates, and organizers whose intellectual caliber, drive, and shared commitment create an environment unlike any other.

The mandate of the Senior Director, National Campaigns is:

Strategic Leadership & Execution

Set Direction, Drive Results & Lead Decisively 

• Create and put in motion a comprehensive national campaign strategy in conjunction with the Chief Political & Advocacy Officer. Establish priorities and identify mutually reinforcing efforts among the national campaigns.
• Maintain the big-picture (a 30,000-foot view) across emerging opportunities and challenges to drive integrated and seamless execution in National campaigns.
• Sequence and prioritize the work of multiple complex initiatives.
• Connect and amplify emerging trends, identifying common threads across issues.
• Inspire confidence by making and enforcing decisions. Distinguish between nice to have and must have and decisively say yes and not now. 

Campaign Expertise & Operations Management

Unify, Coordinate and Optimize 

• Reinforce the connection and work of the highly skilled national campaigns team and integrate their work to prevent conflicting efforts, inefficiencies, and siloed initiatives.
• Provide visibility and oversight across all campaign activities. Be the connective tissue of national campaigns and NPAD and make sure tactics reinforce each other instead of competing for resources.
• Enable success by reducing bureaucratic obstacles and sharpening campaign performance through hands-on support. Help the team know when and how to work together and which battles to pursue.
• Continuously evaluate whether the focus of work represents the highest use of resources. 
• Ensure campaign activities are strategically sequenced and operationally sustainable for the operations, organizing, and state teams.
• Identify and capitalize on missed opportunities.

Thought Partnership & Judgment

Support Leadership, Bring Alignment, and Rapidly Respond 

• Provide insight, clarity, and creativity, and drive well-developed options and decisions as a trusted deputy and thought partner to the Chief Political & Advocacy Officer (CPAO).
• Distill complex operational realities into action and strengthen ideas coming from multiple directions in the matrixed organization. Integrate these ideas into the strategy.
• Support alignment between the CPAO and national campaigns team by fostering a culture of accessibility, mutual respect, and shared purpose through channels that reinforce rather than circumvent established roles.
• Lead rapid response efforts with experience, agility, and nimbleness. 

The Candidate

The ideal candidate is a highly skilled and experienced leader who brings decisiveness, partnership, and strategy. Beyond campaign leadership and success, the ideal candidate brings deep experience in building effective organizations and culture.

Professional experience

• Significant leadership running and winning high intensity major issue advocacy campaigns and multi-year efforts at the national level.
• Deep experience shifting public opinion through diverse campaign strategies and movement-building.
• High level general expertise developed through work for organizations of similar impact and complexity, bringing understanding of campaigns beyond legislative and electoral work.
• Exceptional capacity for managing and leading across teams in a matrixed environment. Strong conflict management skills with ability to bring consensus and/or make decisions where all can agree or “disagree and commit” to move the work forward.
• Experienced in leadership and coordination of rapid response.
• Effective spokesperson for the organization with honed skills in advocacy, influence, and persuasion. Brings strong relationships with external constituencies.
• Demonstrated commitment to ACLU’s core values of equity, diversity, equity, and inclusion. A leader and manager who creates a culture of belonging for all; respects and embraces difference; treats everyone equitably; and empowers colleagues to do the best work possible.

Personal attributes

The successful candidate is someone who gets energy from enabling and collaborating with others. They are:

• Deeply committed to ensuring liberty and justice are lived realities for every American.
• Creative thinker who identifies connections and opportunities. They bring good instincts honed through experience.
• Has strong EQ and ability to lead through complexity with self-awareness.
• Tenacious leader who sets and executes priorities amidst the noise and fast pace.
• Decisive problem solver who is accountable and calm under pressure.
• Supportive manager who helps the team keep steady, connect, be accountable, and achieve. Creates space where the team can take risks, admit mistakes, and bring their full selves to work.
• Quickly respond with a bias towards action.
• Embraces and activates the best ideas regardless of source.
• Credible, authentic, and equipped to lead the work on day one.

The Relationships

The Senior Director will join the leadership of the talented NPAD team that partners across the ACLU to drive national efforts and amplify the priorities of affiliates. Alongside the heads of organizing, operations, policy & government affairs, and state campaigns, the Senior Director will increase the ACLU’s ability to strategically advance policy, electoral, political, and legislative campaigns and internally leverage the organization’s breadth and depth to affect change at the federal, state, and local level.

Compensation & Location 

HOW TO APPLY

OUR COMMITMENT TO ACCESSIBILITY, EQUITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

Accessibility, equity, diversity and inclusion are core values of the ACLU and central to our work to advance liberty, equality, and justice for all. For us diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion are not just check-the-box activities, but a chance for us to make long-term meaningful change.  We are a community committed to learning and growth, humility and grace, transparency and accountability. We believe in a collective responsibility to create a culture of belonging for all people within our organization – one that respects and embraces difference; treats everyone equitably; and empowers our colleagues to do the best work possible. We are as committed to anti-oppression, anti-ableism, and anti-racism internally as we are externally. Because whether we’re in the courts or in the office, we believe ‘We the People’ means all of us.

With this commitment in mind, we strongly encourage applications from all qualified individuals without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran status and record of arrest or conviction, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.    

The ACLU is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual with a disability and need assistance applying online, please email benefits.hrdept@aclu.org. If you are selected for an interview, you will receive additional information regarding how to request an accommodation for the interview process.

The Department of Education has determined that employment in this position at the ACLU does not qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.