California Freethought Day is California's largest annual event for the secular community, combining the fun and atmosphere of a fair with the education and activism of a conference.

You can help us grow with an end-of-year donation that we'll put towards advocacy, scholarships, volunteer work, art projects, marketing, and more. We have a lot planned for 2026 and need your help to pull it off!

2025 Highlights

The year was huge for us, inspired by our theme, "One Nation, Indivisible" drawn by a local artist. We reached out to new people, strengthened our bonds to the secular community, and held an event that broke attendance records (both in-person and in online streams).

🎓 Scholarships: We awarded a staggering $7,800 to students for excellent essays, videos, limericks, and speeches. You can find the winners on our website. Next year we want to reach the $10,000 milestone by adding two additional contests including an art-based scholarship.

🤝 Community Support: We continued our participation and support of Darwin Day, Sacramento Earth Day, SkeptiCal, and HumanLight, while adding Sacramento Pride with a double-wide tent to represent the secular community. We also officially joined the American Humanist Association.

🏦 Community Building: We are strengthening the regional secular community through leadership, fundraising, and capacity building. Our newest effort was the inaugural Secular Solidarity Benefit, tied to Sacramento's Big Day of Giving. Our event hosted seven different organizations and raised a total of $4,881 among us.

🧹 Secular Action Day: Our volunteer day is now an annual event, in conjunction with California's annual Coastal Cleanup Day. Volunteers were asked to head to local lakes and waterways to pick up trash, and we rewarded them with brunch!

⚖️ Secular Advocacy: Using our platform with over 2,000 email subscribers and 4,000 social followers, we made a compelling argument to support California's Proposition 50 (which passed) in alignment with secular organizations throughout the country.

🎨 Art Committee: Our newest committee continued to bring art and expression to our events, hosting an interactive art gallery while bringing an artist to our main event who live-painted two outstanding pieces that were later put up for auction. We also continued our support of Sacramento's Chalk-It-up! festival.

🦋 Social Media: Our participation in the new Bluesky network (@freethoughtday.bsky.social) has doubled our follower count from this time last year, and we now have over 5,500 followers across our social presence. Are you following us @FreethoughtDay?

🖼️ Freethinker Gallery: We doubled the size of our gallery this year, showcasing 36 of the newly reprinted inductees. This year we added Phillip Randolph, Jerry Sloan, and Catherine Fahringer to the gallery.

📺 Advertising Budget: Because of a new donation from the Foundation for Critical Thinking, we more-than-doubled this year's advertising budget which allowed us to reach new markets (the Bay Area) and through new partners (PBS, Sac News and Review, Midtown Radio, and Sac State's student-run station).

Thank You

That's a lot going on for an all-volunteer committee, but our team is dedicated, and your support helps make this happen.

When you give, you’re not just funding an event — you’re strengthening a community that champions curiosity, compassion, advocacy, and action. Together we can make 2026 our boldest year yet. 💙

Set up a monthly donation or make a one-time donation before December 15 at 11:45 PM.

We're a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, so your donation is likely tax deductible.

Giving Tuesday 2025

Help Us Launch an Even Bigger Year