If you've decided to join or form a group and sponsor a refugee family, thank you. This guide is designed to help you through the sponsorship process, from creating a group, to budgeting, to completing application forms, to preparing for arrival. With the government's commitment to bring several thousand refugees to Canada in a short time, your support is so appreciated. It also means that information can change regularly, so we'll notify you via email as and when we update the guide.

This guide is part of a series. Once you have completed the sponsorship process, you can get more detailed information about settling newcomers to Ottawa in the next two guides, also available on the Refugee 613 site.

With sincere thanks to the Refugee Sponsorship Training Program, Capital Rainbow Refuge, and Coalition in Ottawa for Refugees for providing the information contained in this guide.

This webinar is an overview of the Private Sponsorship of Refugees program in Canada (excluding Quebec). You may wish to watch it on your own, or use it as a starting point for your first group meeting. Please note that the information is correct as of October 6, 2015.