A recent ACLU campaign beefed up its major gifts and planned giving

On the first count, McKay says, 40 percent to 45 percent of donors who made contributions of $10,000 or more were younger than 50, including an anonymous donor in his 20s who gave $250,000. Plus, donations were coming in from the children and grandchildren of longtime supporters.

"One of my favorite civil-liberties heroes, Ellie Friedman, made it her mission to enlist her entire clan," McKay says of the campaign's multigenerational appeal, explaining that Friedman recruited her children, nieces and nephews ages 19-29, as well as many other family members across the generations and country, to support the campaign.