<p>States, NGOs, and civil society organizations pursue complementary pathways and community sponsorship as an innovative solution to dwindling refugee resettlement numbers, restrictive asylum policies, and hostility to the reception of migrants. Emerging models tend to be top-down, designed by national governments, and implemented by regional and local NGO partners. The Humanitarian Corridors project, however, represents a unique counterexample. From the bottom-up, faith-based, non-state groups designed Humanitarian Corridors, mobilized resources, and negotiated with national governments for permission to create a new pathway to protection for forced migrants to apply for asylum on EU territory. Through a case study of Humanitarian Corridors in Italy and Belgium, established in 2015 and 2017, respectively, this article analyzes how this complementary pathway emerged. Drawing from the migration governance, negotiation, and resettlement literature, this article foregrounds the efforts of the faith-based groups to engage with national political decision-makers; examines the negotiations over the legal, financial, operational, and political issues key to creating Humanitarian Corridors; and offers explanations as to how and why an agreement was reached. Based on 35 in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with faith-based groups and key political decision-makers directly involved in the negotiations, this article&#xa0;fills empirical gaps in our understanding of civil society, specifically faith-based, groups as agents driving the design and implementation of complementary pathways through direct negotiation with national governments.</p>