Community Sponsorship

Partner with one Community. Support every child.

What is community sponsorship?

Community Sponsorship supports locally led efforts that benefit all children and families in one community.

These communities are often facing serious challenges, including ongoing armed violence and climate- related disasters like flooding and drought.

Community members decide how sponsorship funds are spent. This may include projects that help keep girls in school, improve access to healthcare or make neighbourhoods safer for children.

How Community Sponsorship complements Child Sponsorship

With Child Sponsorship, you can build a connection with a child, while your support contributes to programs that benefit the wider community.

With Community Sponsorship, you can build a connection with a community.

In both approaches, communities decide how support is used. You can follow progress over time as children and families gain better access to schools and health care, and as communities become safer places for children.

Why community sponsorship matters

Community Sponsorship supports locally led responses that meet urgent needs such as education and health care. Like Child Sponsorship, it identifies projects that keep children safe, healthy, and learning – even when circumstances change.

Health that starts in the community

When hospitals are hard to reach or crises disrupt daily life – through conflict or flooding – preventing illness becomes just as critical as treating it. Sponsorship support delivers essentials, helping families access food, clean water, and hygiene supplies when they need them most.

Education that continues, even in uncertainty

In communities affected by displacement, poverty, or repeated emergencies, children are able to continue learning when Plan supports teachers and provides school supplies – thus protecting children’s future choices.

A community for women and girls

Through Community Sponsorship programming, girls and women build knowledge, confidence, and life skills that help them stay in school, care for their health, and see more possibilities for their future.

A notebook may seem like a small thing, but for many children it means so much. Many parents simply don’t have the resources to support their children’s schooling; food and transportation come first, often before school supplies. Being able to help provide these essentials made a real difference for them.” — Joel Dizon, Program Operations Manager

Choose a community to support

You’ve learned how Community Sponsorship works. Now take a closer look at the communities you can support and stand with families facing urgent challenges.

FAQS

Does Community Sponsorship replace my Child Sponsorship?

No. Community Sponsorship is separate. It doesn’t change or affect any Child Sponsorship you already have.

With Child Sponsorship, your relationship is with one child – and your support helps strengthen the entire community around them. Community Sponsorship works differently: Instead of connecting you to one child, it connects you to a whole community, often one facing ongoing challenges such as violence, displacement, or climate-related disruptions.

In both models, your support helps address the same essential issues – such as access to education, health care, and safety – that affect all children and families living there. The difference is simply the connection you choose: a personal relationship with one child or a collective relationship with a community. Some supporters choose one; others choose both.

Can I support both Child Sponsorship and Community Sponsorship?

Yes. You can support Child Sponsorship and Community Sponsorship at the same time.

With Child Sponsorship, you’re connected to one child – and your support helps strengthen the entire community around them. The updates you receive focus on your sponsored child and how they’re growing and learning.

With Community Sponsorship, your connection is to the community itself. The updates you receive show how the entire community is progressing together over time.

In some communities, both types of sponsorship are available. In others, only one is offered, depending on what best supports children and families in that context.

In both cases, your support helps address the same community-identified priorities, such as education, health, and safety for all children and families living there.

How is my Community Sponsorship support used?

Your donation is pooled with others’ to support the priorities that members of the community have identified.

This means funds go where they’re needed most at any given time – such as helping children stay in school, improving access to health care, or helping families stay safe when conflict or climate disasters disrupt their lives.

Circumstances can change quickly: Families may be forced to move; conflict or violence may escalate; floods or drought may damage homes and take away livelihoods. When this happens, children can lose access to essential services like school or health care. Because Community Sponsorship support is connected to the community, resources can be redirected as needs shift – so children continue to receive support even when conditions are unstable or uncertain.

Will I receive updates on the community’s progress?

Yes. You’ll receive annual updates that show how the community is progressing over time.

You’ll hear about what’s improving, what challenges remain, and how local efforts are helping children and families move forward. You’ll also meet some of the people in the community through the stories they share, so you can follow their journey.

This lets you stay connected to one place and see the impact of steady, long-term support.

Is my donation to Community Sponsorship tax-deductible?

Yes. Community Sponsorship donations made through Plan International Canada are tax-deductible in Canada.

You’ll receive an official tax receipt, just as you would for other Plan Canada donations such as Child Sponsorship contributions, Gifts of Hope, and other charitable gifts. Receipts for recurring donations are sent in February of each year; receipts for one-time donations of $25 or more are emailed at the time of the donation.

Is this the same as refugee sponsorship in Canada?

No. Community Sponsorship is not the same as refugee sponsorship.

Community Sponsorship supports children and families in the communities where they live, in countries where Plan International works. Our programs focus on essentials like education, health care, and protection from violence. This includes support for internally displaced people and refugees who are living in a sponsorship community.

Refugee sponsorship in Canada is a different initiative (not offered by Plan International Canada) that supports refugees as they resettle in Canada. Plan International Canada doesn’t offer a resettlement program.

While both aim to support people facing difficult circumstances, they are entirely different approaches, working in different places and in different ways.

Trust & transparency

Community Sponsorship is delivered by Plan International Canada, a registered charity with decades of experience supporting community-led programs around the world.

Plan works with local partners and communities to ensure funds are used responsibly and aligned with locally identified priorities, and is committed to transparency, accountability, and safeguarding in all its work.