Opportunity Snapshot

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the nation's leading movement-lawyering organization, is seeking a liberation-minded Executive Director to guide the next chapter of an institution that has fought alongside social justice movements for six decades. Founded in 1966 by civil rights attorneys representing movements in the Jim Crow South, CCR has built a singular legacy of taking on the cases and issues that few peer organizations will, fusing strategic litigation, advocacy, and narrative shifting to dismantle systems of oppression regardless of the risk.

CCR enters this leadership transition from a position of remarkable strength. The organization has reinforced its financial footing, deepened movement partnerships, expanded its presence in the U.S. South, and maintained internationalist commitments through one of the most volatile political moments in recent memory. As CCR celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2026, leadership and staff describe this transition as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to honor what has been built, sharpen organizational systems, and carry CCR's bold, movement-accountable practice into its next era.

Building on the long and distinguished tenure of Executive Director Vincent Warren, the next leader will inherit an organization profoundly shaped by Vince's twenty years at the helm. Across his tenure, Vince has guided CCR from what he has described as “a scrappy civil rights litigator” into a “bold, anticipatory force in constitutional and human rights advocacy.” Under his leadership, CCR successfully challenged the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy and the surveillance and profiling of Muslim communities, ended long-term solitary confinement at California's Pelican Bay State Prison, established the persecution of LGBTQIA+ people as a crime against humanity, and led the decades-long legal battle on behalf of the men detained at Guantanamo, organizing and coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country in the process. He has also stewarded CCR's expanding presence in the U.S. South and its unwavering, public stance on Palestine, cultivated an extraordinary network of movement partners, peer leaders and donors, and served as a trusted spokesperson whose calibrated public voice has anchored the organization through complex political moments. Looking ahead, CCR’s next Executive Director is well-positioned to lead an organization Vince describes as “strong, principled, and battle-ready.”

CCR’s next leader will be invited to bring their own vision, lead the next phase of CCR's growth, and carry forward an institutional practice rooted in radical politics, movement accountability, and a refusal to cower in the face of power.

A J.D. and prior litigation experience are strongly preferred but not required. Candidates without a J.D. who have led organizations of comparable scope and complexity to CCR and built their careers in or alongside movement lawyering organizations are also encouraged to apply. This national search invites leaders who bring the courage and strategic wisdom to be at the forefront during a moment that demands vision, principle, and imagination.

Compensation and Benefits: The salary range for this position is $262,000 to $305,000, set on CCR's tiered management salary scale and commensurate with years of relevant professional experience. This approach is applied consistently across the organization, ensuring transparency in how CCR sets compensation at every level. CCR's framework includes annual step increases up to a defined maximum, additional incentive pay that accrues with years of service at CCR, and a generous benefits package that spans comprehensive health coverage, employer-sponsored retirement, paid family and parental leave, Winter Wellness Week, and select Summer Fridays.

Executive Director-specific supplemental benefits include uncapped professional development, discretionary meeting and conference funding, enhanced data privacy protections, and relocation reimbursement of up to $8,000 for new hires required to relocate to New York City.

Candidates must submit a resume and tailored cover letter. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis and priority will be given to those received by Monday, August 3.

About the Center for Constitutional Rights

Founded in 1966 by lawyers representing movements in the Jim Crow South, the Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For nearly six decades, CCR has stood with social justice movements and communities under threat, taking on cases and issues that other organizations will not.

Mission: The Center for Constitutional Rights stands with social justice movements and communities under threat, fusing litigation, advocacy, and narrative shifting to dismantle systems of oppression regardless of the risk.

Vision: The Center for Constitutional Rights fights for a world without oppression, where people use their power to achieve justice and guarantee the rights of all.

CCR's accountability is not to the law, but to the people negatively impacted by it. Guided by a critical legal lens and grounded in liberatory, feminist, queer, abolitionist, internationalist, and collectivist commitments, CCR uses the tools of the law in service of communities most harmed by structural racism, patriarchy and gender-based oppression, the criminalization and persecution of LGBTQIA+ and trans communities, economic inequity, militarism, and governmental overreach. CCR has been at the forefront of fights ranging from police accountability and abolitionist organizing, to the defense of the Palestinian liberation movement, to the legal defense of LGBTQIA+ and trans communities targeted by state and private violence, to Guantanamo and post-9/11 detention, to frontline defense of asylum seekers and incarcerated organizers, to open-records strategies that strengthen movement campaigns nationwide.

CCR's signature strength is its willingness to stand alone. Where peer legal organizations are accountable to the law, CCR is accountable to people and movements, and the organization's bold, unapologetic posture has defined over a half-century of impact.

Visit ccrjustice.org to learn more about CCR.

Organizational Structure

CCR operates as a national organization with approximately 60 staff members based primarily in New York, with a growing CCR South footprint, and a distributed team that lives and works across the country. CCR's staff are unionized; the organization values its union as a core partner in stewarding a healthy, values-aligned workplace and is in active negotiations toward a successor collective bargaining agreement.

The Executive Director leads a senior team that includes the Associate Executive Director, Chief Operating Officer, Legal Director, Deputy Legal Director, Advocacy Director, Director of Development, Communications Director, Finance Director, and Executive Associate. CCR is governed by a national volunteer Board of Trustees with deep expertise across movement lawyering, civil and human rights advocacy, philanthropy, and movement organizing.

CCR enters this transition from a position of financial strength, with approximately $22.5 million in reserves providing meaningful runway and resilience. CCR has historically raised $10.5 million to $14.6 million annually for general operations, with recent investments in expanding the organization’s New York headquarters, CCR South, and broader growth in the work, lifting the annual fundraising target into the $18 million to $20 million range. The next ED will inherit a well-resourced institution and a meaningful opportunity to align the depth and ambition of CCR’s work with its fundraising capacity and operational scale for the years ahead.

The Moment

CCR enters this leadership transition at an inflection point that is at once celebratory, demanding, and full of possibility. CCR’s 60th anniversary is a milestone that arrives alongside the active implementation of its 2025 to 2027 strategic plan, ambitious investment in the work ahead, the build-out of CCR's New York headquarters, and the continued expansion of CCR South.

Externally, CCR is operating in one of the most consequential political environments in its history. The current federal landscape, marked by escalating state violence against Black communities and the dismantling of decades of racial justice gains, mass deportation and the targeting of immigrant and asylum seeking communities, attacks on reproductive healthcare and bodily autonomy, escalating violence against trans and LGBTQIA+ communities, accelerating authoritarianism, attacks on dissent, expanded surveillance, rollback of civil and human rights protections, and the ongoing devastation in Gaza, has elevated CCR's role as a movement-accountable legal and advocacy partner whose willingness to take principled stances has, in turn, brought additional support and visibility to the organization. CCR's strategic plan, finalized after the 2024 election, names a clear posture of “Block and Build”, disrupting unjust power while resourcing movements to build the world we are working toward.

Internally, CCR is investing in the institutional structures required to match the depth and ambition of its mission. Staff and Board are aligned in describing an organization with formidable bench strength and a clear, uncompromising radical political identity, fueled by the operations of a 60-person national institution carrying movement-accountable legal and advocacy work demands. Internal infrastructure is understood as political infrastructure: how CCR organizes labor, makes decisions across departments, and stewards its own institutional culture is inseparable from the integrity of its external work. This chapter of CCR’s growth will necessitate deepening the union-management partnership, strengthening collaboration across teams, and continuing to align CCR's internal practice with its external commitments.

This leadership transition is a milestone moment for CCR. The next ED will honor what generations of staff and movement partners have built and bring the bold leadership, imagination, and resolve this moment demands to the work ahead.

About the Role

The Executive Director will serve as CCR's lead strategist, principal movement partner, and organizational steward. Reporting to the Board of Trustees (Board) and partnering closely with the Associate Executive Director, Management Team, and union staff, the ED will carry CCR's mission forward through durable institutional capacity, courageous public leadership when it matters most, and deeper accountability to the movements and communities under threat that CCR fights alongside.

Specifically, the ED will prioritize:

Strategic Vision and Radical Movement Leadership

• Articulate a clear, values-aligned, and movement-accountable vision for CCR's next chapter that builds on the 2025 to 2027 strategic plan and anticipates the demands of this dangerous and consequential moment.
• Lead implementation of CCR's “Block and Build” strategy, in close partnership with movement allies, to disrupt authoritarian consolidation and resource frontline communities.
• Hold CCR’s distinct identity as a radical, movement-lawyering institution with the courage to take positions that other organizations will not or cannot.

Organizational and Operational Leadership

• Refine the internal systems, infrastructure, and management practices that allow a 60-person national organization to carry the weight of its work, with clarity and consistency.
• Partner with the union as a principled labor relationship, grounded in shared commitment to CCR's mission and to the dignity of the workers carrying it forward.
• Support CCR’s day-to-day operations, including finance, HR, IT, facilities, and compliance, while stewarding the build-out of CCR’s NYC headquarters and the deepening of CCR’s footprint and partnerships across the U.S. South.
• Cultivate increased alignment between organizational priorities and fundraising capacity, so that CCR's growth serves the work.

Movement Engagement and External Visibility

• Serve as CCR's most visible voice and chief bridge builder, whether in movement spaces, donor rooms, or with the press, holding relationships across donors, critics, partners, and the broader movement through politically contested moments.
• Stay rooted and accountable in U.S. and international movements, with particular attention to Black-led organizing, abolition, gender and reproductive justice, LGBTQIA+ liberation, migrant defense, Palestinian solidarity, and movement work in the U.S. South.
• Build with peer legal organizations, civic partners, and coalitions, while protecting CCR’s distinctive willingness to stand alone when principle demands it.

Fundraising and Donor Cultivation

• Serve as CCR's principal fundraiser, deepening relationships with the donors and foundations that have stood with CCR, and bringing in new partners across individual giving, foundation partnerships, and movement-aligned funder communities.
• Carry an ambitious annual fundraising target. CCR has historically raised approximately $10.5 million to $14.6 million annually for general operations, and recent organizational growth has lifted the annual target into the $18 million to $20 million range.
• Collaborate with Development on building CCR's small-dollar, younger, geographically and racially diverse donor communities, while sustaining and growing its established major donor relationships.
• Steward CCR's foundation relationships, recognizing that as a multi-issue, principled, and politically forward institution that does not soften its positions to fit funder portfolios, CCR's grants often cut across foundation portfolios and require sophisticated navigation across program officers, presidents, and peer institutions.
• Partner with the Development team as a co-strategist, treating fundraising as part of the political work, not separate from it, and modeling shared responsibility for supporting fundraising efforts across the legal and advocacy teams.

Note that CCR does not accept government funding, a principled choice that means all contributed revenue must be raised anew each fiscal year, with limited reliance on multi-year commitments. Consistent with this commitment, CCR also maintains a principled approach to fundraising from for-profit corporations to ensure philanthropic relationships strengthen, rather than constrain, the organization's ability to stand with frontline movement partners and pursue corporate accountability.

People Leadership and Talent Development

• Begin tenure with a sustained period of listening, learning, and relationship building, including direct one-on-one engagement with staff at all levels, Board members, movement partners, and donors, before advancing significant new strategic or structural initiatives.
• Cultivate a workplace culture grounded in care, accountability, transparency, and shared commitment to CCR's mission.
• Lead a senior management team that brings significant expertise and commitment through a facilitative, trust-based approach, while investing in the leadership and growth of staff across CCR.
• Continue advancing CCR's work to combat anti-Black racism and anti-misogynoir, in addition to its work in support of broader equity shifts, so that CCR's internal culture continues to reflect the principles it fights for in the world.
• Be willing to address harm and dysfunction directly when needed, while honoring CCR's collaborative, consensus-oriented culture.

CCR South Infrastructure

Building on its historic roots in the Deep South, CCR has expanded its movement advocacy model through its Southern Regional Office, also known as CCR South, to help strengthen, support, and build the power of Southern movements as they fight oppressive power and pursue more equitable futures.

• Steward CCR’s commitment to CCR South, enhancement of its footprint and partnerships, and the expansion of key Southern partnerships, fellowships, and pipeline programs.
• Ensure that CCR South is integrated across legal, advocacy, communications, and development functions, rather than housed solely within one department.
• Honor CCR’s commitments to Southern partners while building the institutional roots required for an enduring Southern presence.

Leadership Attributes

Ideal candidates will bring many of the following qualities:

Movement-Lawyering Orientation

The next ED will be steeped in the practice and politics of movement lawyering, whether or not they hold a J.D. They will understand that CCR's accountability is to people and movements, read the present political moment with clarity, and bring familiarity with the lineages and current formations of U.S. and transnational liberation movements, the architecture of structural oppression, and the strategies movements use to build power. Strong candidates will have a meaningful record of partnering with grassroots organizers, frontline defenders, and impacted communities, and they will understand how CCR's integrated practice across litigation, advocacy, and narrative strategy is shaped by, and accountable to, those partnerships.

Bold Visionary

CCR's Board and staff are unequivocal: this is not a moment for cautious leadership. The next ED will bring a bold vision for CCR's role in the years ahead, anchored in the conviction that litigation and advocacy work in partnership to advance justice and liberation, paired with the courage to take principled stances and the discipline to ensure those stances are well-prepared and well-resourced. They will be at ease in the political terrain CCR has long inhabited, including conversations about the dismantling of structural racism, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism; abolitionist organizing against mass incarceration; the fight against gender oppression and LGBTQIA+ discrimination and persecution; the defense of Palestinian solidarity and free speech; surveillance; and resistance to authoritarianism and abusive corporate power, and will lead with crystal clarity about CCR's distinctive contribution to broader movement ecosystems.

Steward of Sustainable Practice

The next ED will bring the steadiness and follow-through to align CCR's bold mission with sustainable operational practices, in close partnership with the management team and union. They will be experienced at building internal systems, structures, and management practices that reflect the organization's values, and at making the relationship between how CCR operates and what CCR stands for visible in everyday practice. They will bring the acumen to ensure those systems support clarity, consistency, and care, and the confidence to make and hold decisions when consensus is not possible.

Rooted in Transnational Solidarity

CCR's work is global, and the next ED will bring familiarity with international human rights frameworks, transnational movement partnerships, and the role of the U.S. as a site of imperial power. Experience in international advocacy spaces, including the United Nations and human rights bodies, is highly valued, as is fluency with the connections between U.S. domestic policy and global struggles for self-determination. CCR's next leader will recognize that work in Geneva, Latin America, Palestine, and across the Global South is central rather than ancillary to the organization's mission.

Resource Mobilizer, Coalition Builder, and Fearless Advocate

The next ED will be an active fundraiser and a confident, prepared public spokesperson. They will step directly into the role of CCR's principal fundraiser, bringing comfort with carrying seven and eight-figure asks and a genuine ease with donors as people, including curiosity about their values, legacies, and motivations. They will authentically connect with others, and as a strategic partner to the development team, will build lasting relationships with major donors and CCR's most committed funders, both nationally and globally, traveling to meet donors both domestically and internationally when needed.  As a public voice, they will also pair charisma with substance, adapting their approach to press, donor, and coalition audiences alike. When circumstances demand, they will craft communication that protects CCR, its clients, and its partners without giving ground on CCR's principles.

Liberation-Oriented

The next ED will bring a deep, sustained commitment to liberatory practices across race, gender, class, disability, sexuality, and the intersections among them. They will be experienced at navigating dynamics within nonprofit institutions where external principles and internal practice can fall out of alignment. This leader will be reflective, willing to acknowledge what they do not know, and committed to modeling the culture they want to see.

Committed to Union and Management Partnership

CCR is a unionized organization actively negotiating a successor collective bargaining agreement. The next ED will bring genuine conviction about the value of labor-management partnership, approaching the union as an essential collaborator in stewarding the organization. This leader will model transparent communication, continually foster trust, and use the union relationship as a source of insight and shared problem-solving.

Mentor and Culture Carrier

The next ED will be a leader who invests deeply in staff development, creating clear pathways for growth across the organization. They will coach, mentor, and develop senior leaders while building consistent supervisory and communication practices throughout CCR. They will model healthy conflict engagement, set tone and expectations clearly, and build a culture in which staff are unleashed to do their boldest, most rigorous work.

Ideal Experience

Strong candidates will bring a range of the following experiences and perspectives. We recognize that exceptional leaders emerge along varied pathways and may not reflect every listed qualification. With this in mind, we encourage candidates to apply even if their background does not match every listed item.

Senior leadership experience in a national civil rights, human rights, movement-lawyering, or movement-accountable advocacy organization.

• A meaningful track record of partnering with grassroots, frontline, and impacted-community organizations as a core operating practice, rather than as a peripheral activity.
• Demonstrated ability to build and refine organizational systems, supervisory structures, and operational infrastructure, ideally at a scale of approximately 40+ staff.
• Experience leading fundraising for a multi-million-dollar individual giving program, including with seven and eight-figure donors and foundations.
• Experience within organizations that decline government funding, navigate cross-portfolio relationships with foundations, or operate as multi-issue institutions is highly valued.
• Experience as a public spokesperson on complex political issues, with comfort calibrating message, audience, and risk in partnership with communications staff, clients, and movement partners.
• Experience navigating union-management dynamics, ideally including active CBA contexts, with a relational and values-aligned posture.
• Professional familiarity with the political terrain central to CCR's work, including policing and surveillance, post-9/11 advocacy, abolition, Palestinian solidarity, gender and reproductive justice, LGBTQIA+ liberation, migrant defense, and Southern organizing.
• Experience working internationally and within human rights frameworks, with networks across the Global South and engagement at multilateral institutions where relevant.
• Demonstrated commitment to anti-oppressive, anti-racist, and equity-centered practice, with a history of leading organizational change in alignment with these commitments.
• Deep proximity to the communities CCR fights alongside, including Black, Palestinian, Muslim, immigrant, criminalized and incarcerated, women, queer, trans, and gender expansive communities.
• A J.D. and prior litigation experience are strongly preferred but not required.
• Direct experience leading in a unionized environment, as a rank-and-file union member, or in worker power-building, is deeply valued but not required.
• Candidates without a J.D. who have led organizations of comparable scope and complexity to CCR and built their careers in or alongside movement lawyering organizations are also encouraged to apply.

Compensation and Benefits

The salary range for this position is $262,000 to $305,000, set within CCR's tiered management salary scale and commensurate with years of relevant professional experience. This approach is applied consistently across the organization, ensuring transparency in how CCR sets compensation at every level.

CCR's salary framework is structured as follows:

• Base salary is set by years of relevant professional experience, with annual step increases up to a defined maximum. Years of professional experience are determined in partnership with the Board Chair and CCR's Human Resources team.
• A tier structure reflects seniority and responsibility, with the Executive Director compensated within Tier 1.
• Additional incentive pay accrues with years of service at CCR, starting at $500 in Year 1 and increasing cumulatively each subsequent year (Year 2 adds $1,000 to base, Year 3 adds $1,500, and so on).
• The framework is designed to provide a consistent and equitable salary structure across current and new positions.

CCR offers a generous benefits package designed to support the well-being, dignity, and longevity of its staff, with several supplemental benefits and discretionary funds reserved for the Executive Director.

Highlights include:

Health, Retirement, and Time Off

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with in-network premiums fully paid by CCR for employees and their families, supplemented by an employer-funded Health Reimbursement Account and Flexible Spending Account contribution.
• Employer-sponsored retirement contribution.
• Generous paid time off, including vacation, sick leave, family and parental leave, and observed and floating holidays.
• Winter Wellness Week, an additional week of paid time off over the last week of the year, and select Summer Fridays for additional paid time off across the summer months.
• Sabbatical eligibility for long-tenured staff.

Executive Director Supplemental Benefits

• Uncapped professional development funding for the Executive Director, above the all-staff annual benchmark.
• Bar or other professional association membership and subscriptions, up to $6,000 annually.
• Enhanced data removal and online privacy protection, up to $2,000 annually, in recognition of the ED's high public profile.
• Cell phone and internet costs fully covered, with a $2,000 annual stipend.
• Honorariums from paid speaking engagements split between the Executive Director and CCR per organizational policy.
• Relocation reimbursement of up to $8,000 for new hires required to relocate to the New York City office, with the specific amount based on the region the new hire is moving from.

Executive Director Discretionary Funding

·      Executive coaching and training, $5,000 per month for the first year.

·      Discretionary meetings and conferences budget of $7,000 for networking and professional development.

·      Software and tools budget of $1,000 annually for project management, scheduling, expense tracking, and similar needs.

Wellness, Staff Engagement, and Appreciation

·      Employee Assistance Program offering a free, anonymous hotline for personal support.

·      Independent and confidential ombuds service for navigating workplace concerns.

·      Informal dress code, organization-wide retreats, regular staff mixers, and other staff appreciation programming.

CCR reserves the sole right to modify any of the benefits or policies described above. Specific benefit details will be confirmed with finalists during the search process.

Contact

The Center for Constitutional Rights is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. CCR encourages applications from women, people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ individuals, gender non-conforming people, and candidates from historically underrepresented communities.

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Candidates interested in the role must submit a resume and a tailored cover letter.

Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis and priority will be given to those received by Monday, August 3.

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