In the month of July, the Inland Empire chapter of Atheists United crossed a significant benchmark, their MeetUp.com group reached 200 members. The long-standing group, which meets at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Riverside, CA, has been established 6 years, but has seen their most significant membership jump after a fortuitous news article and creating profile on MeetUp.com in August of 2006 which allowed the Inland Empire Atheists to become searchable on Google.

In the fall of 2007, the Inland Empire Atheists wrote up a simple press release announcing the group with details for its meetings and sent it to the editor of the Press Enterprise, the local newspaper and were contacted for a story. The article got them recognized and attracted their first big increase in members since they had started.

Jan Goings, organizer for the group, says that at the same time they created their MeetUp.com group, they changed their name from the Inland Empire Freethinkers to the Inland Empire Atheists. "People were eager to identity with atheism and while some people had reservations about calling themselves atheists, we've seen so many people attracted to the group after the switch. Now people are pretty comfortable with the title." Goings also notes that since the creation of the MeetUp.com group, there has been an influx of younger people interested in atheism who attend the meetings.

On average, there are 50 to 60 members per meeting and the program varies from watching DVDs, to open forums, to speakers. They always include food and make it a point to be friendly to new attendees and assign people to contact new members after their first meetings to invite them back. At the end of each meeting, they raffle off a book related to atheism, which typically was donated used by members of the group. They also plan social events outside of their monthly meetings. In addition to their meetings, they also maintain a discussion board on the internet which provides members with thoughtful discussion throughout the month.