What is Community Sponsorship?
Community sponsorship involves everyday people forming a local group and taking the lead role in welcoming and supporting the integration of a refugee newcomer into their town or city. The group engages in fundraising to cover some of the initial needs of the refugee household and is trained to provide practical support to the newcomer(s) to help them settle into their community
A growing global movement
Community Sponsorship around the world
Often referred to as the ‘Canadian model’, community refugee sponsorship has been working successfully in Canada for more than 40 years where everyday community members have sponsored and welcomed more than 400,000 refugees since the late 1970s through a variety of different programs, adding to the numbers who have arrived under the government-assisted resettlement program.
Since 2015,the practice has spread around the world with countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, New Zealand, Spain and Argentina all developing their own programs. Australia joined this growing movement with the launch of the national ‘CRISP’ program in 2022.