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What we do

Sponsor Refugees is a project of Citizens UK – the Home of Community Organising.

We are building the Community Sponsorship movement in the UK – giving power to (not-so-) ordinary citizens to welcome directly refugees to their neighbourhoods. We do this in a number of ways:

  • We act as Lead Sponsor to groups across the UK
  • We promote the Community Sponsorship scheme and build new groups
  • We run the Community Sponsorship Portal – a Step-by-Step Guide
  • We facilitate knowledge sharing and learning
  • We campaign for & celebrate refugee resettlement in the UK

To welcome a refugee family through the Community Sponsorship scheme, a group must become or partner with a registered charity - known as a ‘Lead Sponsor’, who take legal responsibility for the project.

We are the largest Lead Sponsor in the UK, working with over 40 groups. We aim to streamline the application process and support you through every step of the journey, through templates, resources and bespoke advice.

Understand what it means to be a Lead Sponsor here, and how we can help you.

The greatest experts of Community Sponsorship are you – the sponsors and resettled families. We facilitate knowledge sharing in three ways:

We run the Mentors Scheme, offering to match every new group with an experienced mentor who has already welcomed a family.

We run a fortnightly “Lunch & Learn” zoom session- a space for Community Sponsors to gather and ask questions about different topics and learn from experienced sponsors, newcomers and sector experts.

We run regional networks in the West Midlands and Scotland. See how you can Join our Community.

There is so much to do, it can be difficult to know where to start! That’s why we have broken down each step of the process into manageable, bite-sized chunks – and provided all the resources and templates you need to get started.

Sign up to our portal here.

We also have a links to useful resources and templates here.

We led the campaign to expand refugee resettlement and introduce Community Sponsorship to the UK. And we continue to campaign to protect and improve resettlement. You can see our history of campaign wins here.

We work with sector partners and the Home Office to innovate and improve the scheme. One way we do this is through the Community Sponsorship Council. You can see who we work with here.

Our sister project, Together We Can, builds the power of migrant, refugee and diaspora leaders to win change.

We celebrate the heroes and heroines of the movement through our Community Sponsorship Awards.

We are partners of Refugee Week, celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.