Exceptional verbal and written communications skills including experience with both print and electronic media and the new technologies, as well as the ability to serve as the organization's chief spokesperson, often in the face of public resistance to the organization's positions. A background in the design and management of legislative agendas, litigation strategies, and grassroots organizing and public education programs. The next leader of the ACLU will face a multitude of challenges within the society at large as well as within the organization. In our society, advances in civil liberties and freedoms are not made in a vacuum. No civil liberties victory is ever permanent.
Advances are always fragile and at risk.
Progress always produces a reaction. The society is constantly and rapidly changing, creating new issues to be addressed. The challenge facing the organization and its next Executive Director is to build, among increasing numbers of our citizens, an appreciation of the ever-present need for vigilance in the protection of our liberties. The next Executive Director must build on the organization's successes by combining a commitment to the ongoing growth of public education and grass roots organizing while continuing to strengthen the legal and legislative advocacy programs. This will require reaching out to new constituencies and enlisting them to join the movement because broad based support and understanding are vital to the legal battles and public policy struggles that the ACLU undertakes.