Knowing When to Lead and When to Lean Back
THE OBVIOUS CHOICE Series — No. 1
In conversation with Sebastian Krueger, Chief Communications Officer, New York Civil Liberties Union
ABOUT THE SERIES
There’s a difference between being generally respected and being uniquely valued. Most of the nonprofits I work with are the former—excellent at what they do and reputable to boot. But simply being good at your work is no longer enough to distinguish you. To a potential funder or partner, the world is full of excellent organizations, all pursuing similar, overlapping goals, swimming in a swamp of sameness. If you want your audiences to truly see you and your strengths, you have to uncover your positioning: what makes you unique and indispensable in your space? Positioning is what takes you from being generally respected to being specifically valued.
The Obvious Choice is a series of conversations with nonprofit leaders trying to stand apart in an increasingly crowded field. We talk about why positioning matters, their experience trying to uncover it, and their ongoing journey from one of many to the obvious choice.
My inaugural conversation is with Sebastian Krueger, the Chief Communications Officer at the New York Civil Liberties Union. NYCLU, an affiliate of the ACLU, advances civil liberties and rights across the state of New York through a combination of strategic litigation, policy advocacy, and grassroots organizing. Thanks to its 75-year history and impressive record of successes, NYCLU is one of the most influential affiliates in the country. I worked on the NYCLU’s positioning and brand strategy back in 2023 during my time at Hyperakt. This interview was an opportunity to hear how the work has held up and evolved since then. Below is our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Sruthi: What initially motivated you to work on your positioning?
Sebastian: New York is a very saturated place for activism, which is really wonderful. But because the NYCLU works on so many issues, I could see the way in which we risked losing interest to organizations that focused on single issues like digital privacy or immigration. There was always someone else you could go to get more focus. NYCLU had to start making a case to our audiences for why we work across such a breadth of issues. There were many instances where a supporter or a partner might think, “Well, I already have an organization who works on the specific issue I care about. Why should I give NYCLU my money or time?”
Sruthi: Superlatives sometimes become the flag that organizations fly: “We are the oldest, we are the biggest, we have the most money, etc.” But then they stop there, without going into what that actually means — the “so what.” Okay, so what? How did you think about making sure your unique value didn’t stop at a superlative?
Sebastian: Yeah, we used to just say, “We work in legal and policy and in communities, and we work across so many different movements and causes.” But therefore what? We had to figure out how to explain that the many parts of our work hang together and add up to something more.
We thought a lot about how our breadth and the totality of the things we work on make us different. As NYCLU, we can credibly say, "Hey, we understand why immigration is a privacy issue. We know why reproductive rights are a racial justice issue.” We uniquely have a sense for the hidden dangers in policymaking given those intersections and the work we do in constitutional law. And our connection to actual communities means that we can make sure our work in rarefied spaces is informed by actual lived experience of people in our communities. You're not going to write good policy unless you have a real sense of the community. And you're not going to win a policy or a legal victory and keep it won unless you are being vigilant about how it's impacting people on the ground or making sure that people can avail themselves of that right.
Having this clarity helps us to not lose the plot and stay focused. Now, we can take our audiences or a reporter on that journey—from immigration to showing how it intersects with digital privacy. This has been a tremendous benefit. Our messaging is sharper, our strategy is sharper, our sense of self is sharper.
Sruthi: How has getting clearer about your unique value impacted your movement and coalition work?
Sebastian: It's very delicate to work within movements and specifically, within coalitions. You have different organizations with different perspectives, interests or needs and it can be messy. We as an organization spend a lot of time trying to ensure that we are not stepping on anyone or being duplicative in the work, that we are a value-add in those spaces. [Positioning] has really helped us. [We are clearer about] when we're gonna let someone else be the messenger on a leading edge moment. Are we the more expert voice? Do we have different insights that we can bring to bear?
Unless you have a real sense of yourself and your strengths, you are taking a big gamble with your relationships, going in there, just hoping it works out . Or maybe you have incredible instincts today. But it's untenable tomorrow. Especially as you grow larger, you may be setting yourself up for failure if you don't have a real sense for your role in the network, where you lean in, where you lean back. I do want to note that negotiating will always remain a tricky puzzle. But it has been tremendously impactful to show up in ways that feel clearer and more credible.
Sruthi: Many nonprofit leaders think positioning is what you do when you want to compete — to grab market share, elbow others out of the way, or be the center of attention — not to collaborate. How would you react to that?
Sebastian: My reaction is quite the opposite. I actually think [positioning] helps you learn how to cooperate. We learned to collaborate and cooperate as kids. Who owned the ball? Who could kick it farther? You can’t divide up the labor if you don't know what your capacities are, what your strengths are, where your relationships stand.
Sruthi: There are also those who adhere to a more traditional philosophy: put your head down, do good work, and your value will just become evident. You don’t need to speak for your work; good work will speak for itself. How do you respond to that?
Sebastian: The work itself comes first. But we always have to show our work; that's what people come to us for. But you can show the work in a way that also makes it clear why you. I find the suggestion that you should just stay heads-down a little funny, because you run the risk of being misunderstood or obscuring yourself. There's no need to trade one for the other.