DangerousTalkDangerous Talk » Atheist Billboards Needs Funding

Atheist Billboards Needs Funding

Posted on April 27th, 2011 by Staks

As the Coordinator for PhillyCoR, I have had this great idea for a new billboard campaign for awhile. Despite my horrible photoshop skills, I created a mockup with a stock photo to show around and see what people thought. My initial plan was for it to be a modification of UnitedCoR’s standard billboard.

I showed my mockup to Fred Edwords the head of UnitedCoR. He is someone I greatly respect (although that is sort of an understatement considering I am probably his biggest fan). He liked the idea but thought that it might need some tweaking. Here is what that mockup looks like:

While I haven’t given up on that billboard campaign, the FFRF has also been putting up billboards all over the nation. As a member of the Freethought Society, a Philly affiliate of FFRF, I heard that they are planning to put up billboards in the Philly area.

I was told that the campaign would be their “Coming out of the closet” campaign and that the Freethought Society was looking for local atheists to put themselves on the billboards with their own message. So I came up with a message and did my poor photoshop mockup of the billboard and passed in on to the Freethought Society president in a bid to get it on an actual billboard.

My mockup was used in the group’s newsletter to help generate much needed funds for the project. However, shortly after the newsletter came out (like ten minutes) I discovered that FFRF has their own mockup generator so that any atheist can make a mockup with their own message and photo. Here is mine:

Now, here is the deal. My mockup might actually make it on a real billboard. But the Freethought Society needs donations earmarked for the Billboard Campaign. I don’t really know how much these things cost, but I have heard that they are usually around $5000. So I am asking the Dangerous Talker Army to donate a few dollars to the Freethought Society earmarked for this project. Even a few dollars will help. Lots of small donations can really do the job.

Why spend the money on this? Polls have shown that when atheists make ourselves more visible in a community, our approval rating goes up and atheists face less discrimination. This campaign in particular puts real local faces to atheism. It encourages people to come out of the closet and to become part of the greater community of reason.