Community Sponsorship Alliance: High-Level Strategy 2026

Read the 2026 Strategy Report

As we begin a new year, it is important to pause, take stock, and be explicit about how the Community Sponsorship Alliance will operate in the next phase of its life. 

The CSA was created to serve, protect and grow community sponsorship in the UK, grounded in real delivery, lived experience, and the daily realities faced by communities who welcome newcomers. That purpose has not changed. What has changed is the context around us. 

Community sponsorship is once again attracting significant policy interest. The recent Government White Paper ‘Restoring Control over the Immigration System’ (May 2025), and subsequent workshops and announcements, recognises sponsorship as a central safe and legal route and references the potential of named sponsorship - an approach CSA members have advocated for over a decade. Coupled with this,  Protecting What Matters: Towards a More Confident, Cohesive and Resilient United Kingdom (March 2025) - a Government paper - includes an explicit commitment to reform Community Sponsorship, stating that the Government will "put power in the hands of local communities to be directly involved in welcoming and supporting those seeking refuge". 

This moment presents both opportunity and risk. 

If sponsorship is to move from the margins to the center of UK protection policy, it must be built on properly funded, accountable infrastructure. Principal Sponsors cannot be treated as voluntary add-ons to government policy. They are safeguarding leads, risk mitigators, and accountable partners. Without sustainable Government and/or private funding for this infrastructure, sponsorship will not scale safely or fairly. 

CSA itself will not become a delivery body. Our role remains strategic. But we will be clear that the ecosystem required to deliver sponsorship credibly must be resourced. 

As interest in sponsorship grows - from government, from philanthropy, from new actors - CSA's role as a convenor becomes as important as its role as an advocate. We are not just a voice. We are a meeting point: for practitioners, for policymakers, for people with lived experience of being welcomed. This strategy sets out how CSA will use that position in 2026. 

It sits alongside our Terms of Reference, clarifying our vision, purpose, boundaries, and our discipline. It reflects a more confident phase of the Alliance's development: clearer about what we stand for, what we will prioritise, and what we will decline. 

This is a framework for timely action, confident representation, and collective discipline as sponsorship enters its next phase. 

— Susannah Baker MBE 

Chair, Community Sponsorship Alliance 

Read the 2026 Strategy Report