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

McKay and Romero attribute that to the fact that the ACLU successfully communicated the notion that no matter who's in the White House or what's happening on  the national front, there will always be state-level threats to civil liberties.

"Part of it is about having people understand that the ACLU is a permanent fixture on the American political landscape," Romero says. "If the ACLU went down tomorrow, we would have to build a new one the day after tomorrow. The ACLU can never shutter its doors."