Our Personal Connection to Sponsorship

Our particular focus on refugee resettlement is based on a fundamental belief we have that for resettlement to be successful, it must have deep, community-based, bottom-up support.  That has the important, additional win-win benefit of involving the community and creating an opportunity for local families to experience the benefits of Welcoming the Stranger.

Our family’s personal experience with Community Sponsorship started in 2016 when we partnered with Jewish Family Service of Metrowest, HIAS and eight Boston area synagogues (including our own, Temple Beth Elohim) in a pilot project to resettle eight Syrian families. Three years later, these families are happy, healthy, employed, attending school and integrated. They continue to receive informal support/friendship from members of the community sponsor groups (including our own). This experience was life-changing for our entire family, and is in large part the basis of our ongoing global efforts to support community sponsored refugee resettlement.

In early 2017, recognizing that the United States was not likely to be hospitable to expanded resettlement programs, we turned our attention internationally. We were introduced to a coalition called The Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative (GRSI) whose goal is to “share Canada’s experience and support the adoption of similar models in other countries. The ultimate goal is to increase refugee protection by mobilizing the compassion that exists in communities around the world.”  

Our first active project was actually in Canada in 2018, when we learned that approximately 1,000 Canadian spaces under one of the three resettlement programs (called BVOR, which matches UNHCR most vulnerable refugees with private sponsors) were not going to be filled and would expire at the end of the calendar year. Recognizing that these scarce Canadian resettlement spaces had become the most coveted lottery tickets in the eyes of refugees in every corner of the planet, we vowed to do whatever we could to preserve them. 

The program was a tremendous success, and with several of our philanthropic partners joining us, the result was the resettlement of 668 refugees in 2018.  After being renewed in 2019, another 517 were matched. We are currently working with IRCC and other partners to leverage our experience and implement another version of the program for 2020 (and beyond).     

Prior to Fall 2021, fewer than ten of the 200+ resettlement offices across the US meaningfully embraced co-sponsorship. Through the first two Catalyst Funds at CSH, we tried to change the culture around this. Our goal was to help a majority of resettlement agencies believe that volunteers are huge net assets when working in partnership with professional case management. 

As a result on the unprecedented welcome of 80,000 Afghans in a matter of months, we were able to partner with over 40 affiliates representing each of the major resettlement agencies--most deeply with HIAS--in order to ensure that over 5,000 Afghans arriving to the US were welcomed in with a sponsorship group. This moment changed resettlement in the US forever and opened the door to community-driven resettlement in corners of the world beyond just Canada.

With the horrific invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the world was given a unique opportunity to welcome in Ukrainian home and children fleeing for safety. 

Through the leadership of Pathways International we were proud to thoughtfully partner with the UK's Home Office who welcomed over 100,000 Ukrainians through "The Homes Scheme." Among other efforts, the Shapiro Foundation invested directly into Citizens UK to ensure there was a robust matching platform for Brits and Ukrainians to safely and efficiently meet. We also were thrilled to partner with Wizz Air to provide 4,500 tickets to Ukrainians fleeing for their lives.

Though not as centralized as the efforts in The UK, the entire EU opened up a lawful pathway for Ukrainians to seek safety from the war. We were proud to invest in community-driven efforts of welcome in Countries ranging from Poland, Bulgaria & Czech Republic in the East to France, Spain & Ireland in The West.