Emotions play a key role in motivating and sustaining Community Sponsorship (CS) groups.  Community Sponsorship is a British scheme where communities raise funds and establish a core volunteer group to support a refugee family to resettle in the UK. 

This new article, in the VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, guides the reader through the lifecycle of emotions experiences by CS volunteers.  These can range from the negative reactive emotions that trigger group formation, to the positive affective emotions experienced by groups as they consolidate. At the end of the life cycle the volunteers experience both intense positive emotions such as love and kinship, but can also experience negative affective emotions such as volunteer burnout and disagreements within the group. Providing CS groups with more support may combat the negative emotions felt by some and aid the sustainability of CS in the long term.

Read the open access article:  “I have Felt so Much Joy”: The Role of Emotions in Community Sponsorship of Refugees

Find out more about the Intitute for Research into Superdiversity's (IRiS) Community Sponsorship research