Affiliate Your Student Group with the SSA

You can use the following form to affiliate your campus group with the Secular Student Alliance.

This affiliation is not a contract. It has no binding terms and may be ended by either the SSA or the campus group at any time for any reason. Campus groups are welcome and encouraged to form affiliations with other national or local organizations in addition to the SSA. To become an affiliate of the Secular Student Alliance, your group must serve primarily students. Your group must be officially recognized by a school, college or university. If you are having difficulties achieving recognition on campus or your institution is religiously affiliated, please contact us for help - we do make exceptions for extenuating circumstances.

To retain your affiliation with the SSA, your group must keep its contact information up to date via our semiannual Affiliation Renewal, a 15-minute online form with questions about contact information and recent activities.

The Secular Student Alliance (SSA) allocates the majority of its resources into the support of its affiliate groups. We only support groups that are in line with our mission. We have developed the following standards to help campus groups determine if they should seek affiliation with us. Note that these standards apply only to groups that we officially affiliate with in order to support. Individuals of any worldview are welcome to join the SSA if they wish to support our mission.

Additionally, we are open to cooperation on an ad-hoc basis with other organizations - regardless of their worldview - on specific issues of common concern.

International Groups - If your group is at a school, university or campus outside of the United States or Canada, you are welcome to affiliate with us as long as you are a student-oriented group that is affiliated with a university and agrees with our minimum statement. Your group will be listed on our website and will have the recognition of being associated with an international organization; however, many of the resources and services we offer cannot be applied to groups outside of North America. For more information on the SSA and international affiliate groups, please visit our International page.

Our Minimum Standards for Affiliation

We invite campus groups to affiliate with us if they share our values of naturalism, reason and compassion in the service of making the world a better place for all humanity. They must share a philosophical worldview informed by the methods of science, recognize the evolution of our knowledge, and be free from dogma and open to revision as new evidence and more compelling reasons are presented.

We embrace the common goals and shared aspects of all naturalistic, secular worldviews. Secular Student Alliance affiliates include, but are not limited to, atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, skeptics, naturalists, brights, Pastafarians, and many others.

Specifically, we are interested in affiliating with groups that are:

Naturalistic - We hold that natural things are the only things about which humans can coherently communicate or think. Most of us believe that all things that exist are natural things. We also believe that critical inquiry, combined with empirical investigation where possible, leads to a more accurate understanding of the world in which we live than revelation, faith, or authority.

Economically Neutral - We share many common concerns with organizations that advocate specific economic principles, including Libertarians, Objectivists, Greens, and others. However, we cannot affiliate with groups that pursue an active economic agenda, be it on the left or right. We do acknowledge that the study of economics and sound economic policy is vital to the betterment of humanity. However, we have no interest in endorsing one economic view over others. We strive to see naturalism, reason and compassion take center stage in economic discussions and encourage our affiliates to promote discussion of economic issues.

Civil Rights-Minded - We cannot support groups that promote denial of liberties in areas such as religion, speech, or equality under the law.

Non-discriminatory - We cannot affiliate with groups that bar members from joining on the basis of their creed or worldview. We also cannot affiliate with groups that discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, national origin, sex, age, handicap, or veteran status.