SOMOS IPA is a Portuguese non-profit fighting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics. I’m the Treasurer. I also built and maintain everything technical.
When I joined, the organisation had no website, no structured membership process, no shared tooling, and no system for collecting member data compliantly. SOMOS IPA runs almost entirely on volunteer hours, which means operational chaos isn’t an edge case — it’s the default. It’s also what eats the time that should go to advocacy. I’d rather spend my volunteer hours fighting discrimination than fighting our own spreadsheet.
What I built
Website — designed and built somosipa.pt from scratch. Used Canva as the CMS layer so non-technical volunteers can update content independently.
Membership onboarding system — a bilingual Portuguese/English signup form with GDPR consent flows, payment preference collection, and WhatsApp community integration. Used by every member who has joined since it was built. Hosted on GitHub Pages: simple, free, maintainable.
Nonprofit software licensing — sourced and set up Google Workspace for Nonprofits, giving the team access to the full G Suite for effectively nothing. Evaluated and secured equivalent nonprofit licensing across other tools wherever available.
Communication and collaboration infrastructure — Slack for internal coordination, Google Workspace email, shared drives, and a consistent async workflow for a distributed volunteer team.
Security basics — password manager setup and basic security hygiene across all shared accounts and tools.
Ongoing IT — anything else that comes up. If it’s technical and SOMOS IPA needs it, it lands with me.