Our 2025 Accomplishments
This year, we’ve hit some major milestones, and we’re excited to show you exactly what your investment has accomplished.
In 2025, you helped us:
Raise $15,000 in response to the Los Angeles fires
We sent $10,000 to Black Skeptics LA to fund black-families impacted in Altadena, converted our office building into a day shelter for a week, and collected hundreds of pounds of food and clothing.
Feed over 1,650 families through our Food Distribution
We transported, sorted, packed, and gave away over 42,000 lbs of food, impacting 5,500 people while volunteers donated over 800 hours of their time.
Remove over 4,000 illegally-placed religious signs
Since our Atheist Street Pirates program launched in 2020, our pirates have removed over 10,000 illegal religious signs across the U.S.!
Sing over 700 songs together
Our ongoing Karaoke Nights and Saturday Sing-Alongs (both at Heretic House) hosted over 200 secular singers this year.
Our choir, Voices of Reason, practiced weekly and performed publicly for political rallies, corporate conferences, and atheist communities across California.
Host 166 people at four unique community parties
Members danced at our 80’s party in January (Heretic House), made art at our Pirate Party & Art Exhibit in May (Center for Inquiry LA), relaxed at our Beach Party in July (Dockweiler Beach), and drank spirits at our Halloween Party in October (Heretic House).
Sell 80 tickets to our Science Sundays
Our community took expert-led science tours of the LA Zoo, Mount Wilson Observatory, and the LA River.
Take 49 people on Atheist Adventure camping trips
We hosted family-friendly star-gazing with an astronomer in Death Valley National Park and discussed community resilience with an expert in Malibu Creek State Park.
Host over 45 Smart Recovery meetings
We hosted weekly meetings that average 10-20 attendees.
Win American Atheists’s 2025 Affiliate of the Year award
We accepted our award in front of 500 people in Minneapolis at the American Atheist convention.
Why are we kicking so much ass?
Since the pandemic, we made the bold choice to no longer center the same old program ideas that hadn’t changed since 1982 (lectures, newsletters, meetups).
We knew that if we wanted to attract new and younger members, we had to shake things up. We had to get nimble, start trying new things, and be okay with failure.
After a lot of thought, we developed an organizing hypothesis: if we launched fresh, fun, creative, and experiential programs — laser focused on addressing community needs — we could come out of the pandemic stronger than we went into it.
With board support, we began launching an absurd amount of new programs!
Science Sundays, Atheist Adventures, Karaoke Nights, Saturday Sing-Alongs, Atheist Street Pirates, Evolve Youth Group, Picnics in the Park, AU Studios, Member Parties, Scholarships, Food Distributions, and the Humanist Spark Summit.
On top of that, we expanded our advocacy and outreach work by joining state-wide coalitions and local interfaith groups, tabling at youth leadership conferences and outdoor concerts, and marching in local holiday parades like the Santa Clarita 4th of July Parade and the Covina’s Christmas Parade.
Did we prove our hypothesis true?
Yes, and then some! A wave of new members and small donors have flooded into our community since 2020. Our camping trips made the cover of the LA Times, our Atheist Street Pirates were interviewed by the BBC, our food distributions have recruited hundreds of new volunteers, and our partnerships have led to new grant funding.
But we still want to do more.
After four years of experimenting we’ve done the hard work of figuring out what works, how much it costs, and where to experiment next. It’s now your turn to fund all of these amazing new programs and help us build up the resources to try more.
We’re confident we can keep hosting the best events in California for atheists (while mobilizing our community for the fight against Christian nationalism), but only if we can raise enough money to keep doing what we’re doing.
You deserve full transparency.
In 2025, with your support, we’re projecting $90,000 in income (a 900% increase from 2018). However, our budget with all of our amazing new programs, just hit $160,000.
This budget makes us the largest local atheist community non-profit in the country. But compared to your local church, or synagogue, or mosque, our budget is a joke.
Most religious organizations with similar sized membership brag of $500,000+ annual budgets, and own their own building!
We need every member, supporter, and ally of the atheist community to reach deep into their pockets and fund our proven model.
Then, we need your help introducing our events to your friends, family, and comrades that will become our next 300 members.
What will we spend your money on?
If we hit our end-of-year goals, we will immediately fund a relaunch of our youth group, purchase a first-floor shed for our supplies (a badly-needed upgrade since we outgrew our office this year), hire a part-time support staff member to support fundraising and operations, rebrand, and lead a state-wide advocacy campaign to protect students from attacks by Christian nationalists.
If we raised an additional $100,000 more than our goal, we could add a dedicated Programs Director or Advocacy Director to our staff, giving us the ability to launch dozens of chapters across California and quadruple our advocacy efforts.
If we raised an additional $1,000,000, we could start looking into buying an atheist community center.
Imagine how many more atheists we could bring together if we had a permanent, visible home in L.A., and professional staff working day in and day out to mobilize our community state-wide.
It’s all possible if we continue to organize and build on our successes, little by little.
First, we have to hit our $25,000 fundraising goal and continue to fund what works. If we can accomplish that, we’re one step closer to building toward our larger vision.
2026 is going to be our biggest year yet, but only if we have you in our corner.
Thank you for being with us on the journey so far.
Best wishes,
Evan Clark
Executive Director