The EU-funded project GROWTH aims to strengthen and expand community sponsorship programs across the European Union by applying innovative, evidence-based approaches to sponsor recruitment, retention, and crisis response. By building on lessons learned from recent humanitarian emergencies, GROWTH seeks to increase both the number and diversity of sponsors and sponsorship stakeholders, while reinforcing the capacity of communities to welcome and integrate refugees in a sustainable way.

GROWTH is implemented in three leading community sponsorship countries (Italy, Ireland, and Germany) and brings together key civil society actors, communities, and institutions involved in refugee welcome and integration. Over the course of the project, GROWTH will develop and test innovative strategies to scale sponsorship schemes, strengthen housing solutions, and support sponsorship programs in responding effectively to future crises.

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The project is grounded in the belief that community sponsorship is a powerful tool within the European refugee protection system, complementary to traditional resettlement pathways.

The project is grounded in the belief that community sponsorship is a powerful tool within the European refugee protection system, complementary to traditional resettlement pathways. By combining research, practical innovation, and wide dissemination of tools and lessons learned, GROWTH promotes long-term reception capacity and stronger integration outcomes across EU Member States.

Main objectives

The main objectives of the GROWTH project are to:

  1. Support the growth of community sponsorship schemes in partner countries and across the EU by building a strong evidence base for scaling sponsorship;
  2. Develop and implement evidence-based strategies for the recruitment and retention of sponsors;
  3. Analyse and apply innovations - particularly those emerging from crisis response contexts - to strengthen sponsorship models;
  4. Increase the number and diversity of sponsorship stakeholders, including individuals, civil society organisations, and faith-based groups;
  5. Address housing challenges by identifying, piloting, and promoting innovative housing solutions for sponsored refugees;

Scaling community sponsorship in Europe

Over the past years, European communities have demonstrated extraordinary solidarity in response to the war in Ukraine and the crisis in Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have opened their homes and communities to people fleeing conflict and persecution, revealing a vast and largely untapped potential for community-based welcome.

While much of this mobilisation occurred outside formal community sponsorship frameworks, it relied heavily on the expertise, resources, and values of established sponsorship actors. GROWTH builds on this momentum by analysing what motivates communities to step forward, identifying the barriers that limit long-term engagement, and developing strategies to retain existing hosts while recruiting new sponsors.

By leveraging this unprecedented mobilisation, GROWTH aims to transform short-term crisis responses into durable, scalable sponsorship systems that strengthen reception capacity and integration outcomes across the EU.

A core innovation of GROWTH is the development of a robust and unprecedented evidence base drawn from the experiences of thousands of sponsors across the three partner countries. This analysis will inform:

In the short term, GROWTH will lead to an increased number and diversity of active sponsors and stakeholders involved in refugee welcome. In the medium and long term, the project will ensure that community sponsorship schemes across Europe are more resilient, inclusive, and better equipped to respond to both ongoing and future displacement crises.

Consortium 

The GROWTH project is implemented by the following partners:

Funded by the European Union