EqualReach Scales Refugee Employment with Bubble

When Giselle Gonzales crossed Europe’s refugee route in the winter of 2015–2016, documenting the realities of displacement from Greece to Germany, she witnessed something that would shape her next decade: Talented professionals ready to work but blocked by systemic barriers. Legal restrictions, limited local opportunities, and lack of access to global markets kept skilled individuals underemployed despite their expertise.

That journey planted the seed for EqualReach, a social enterprise connecting organizations to vetted, highly-skilled teams of specialists (tech, design, marketing, admin, etc.) from refugee communities around the world for digital, project-based work.

But turning a decade of experience into a working platform presented a challenge: How could a small team build a sophisticated marketplace without the time and cost of traditional development?

The answer came through Bubble — and within three months, EqualReach launched the first MVP, which they’ve since scaled to creating dignified opportunities for displaced professionals in 15 countries while delivering results for businesses from the UK, US, and EU for projects like digital marketing, web development, AI integration, admin support, and more.

From manual operations to scalable platform

For EqualReach’s first year, everything was manual. Giselle and her team handled contracts, payments, team vetting, and project facilitation entirely by hand — a process that limited them to just two or three projects at a time.

"Our model involves a lot of complexity that we operationalize on the back-end so that our business customers don’t have to ," Giselle says. "So we did an audit of all of our processes and built backwards. What were our biggest pain points operationally? What took us the most time?”

The team needed a platform that could handle the complete marketplace workflow: project submissions, team matching, proposals, contracts, payments, and ongoing project management. Building this with traditional development would have required significant capital and time — resources a social enterprise couldn't afford to spend.

Giselle discovered Bubble through the Immerse pre-accelerator program, which connected her to Olena Voloshyna, who would become EqualReach's Product Lead. With her background in UX/UI design and basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from a bootcamp, Olena had the design expertise but no traditional coding experience.

"It allowed us to focus on the problem and customers we were building our solution for, not get bogged down in the tech," Giselle says. "Plus it allowed us to pilot new ideas and pivot quickly with an agile tech stack."

Building a three-sided marketplace with Bubble

Within three months, the EqualReach team launched their MVP on Bubble. This has since become a comprehensive platform managing three distinct user experiences: clients, delivery partners (the vetted teams/agencies of displaced and local talent), and an internal admin dashboard.

The platform streamlines what were once days-long manual processes into a matter of minutes. Businesses submit project requests through a streamlined form that collects scope, timeline, budget, and skill requirements. The EqualReach team take a humans-in-the-loop approach to handpick one to three teams from their vetted network who are best-suited for the project. Those teams submit custom proposals directly through the platform, and clients can compare options, review team experience, and sign contracts — all on Bubble.

"We make it really simple where a business within five to 10 minutes can submit a new project request," Giselle explains. 

The complexity lies in what happens behind the scenes. Olena and the team built sophisticated role-based workflows that manage the entire project lifecycle, from initial submission through smart contracting decision trees, multi-stakeholder signing, payment processing, and delivery tracking.

For Olena, coming from a design background, Bubble bridged the gap between design and development in ways traditional coding never could.

"If there's a quick UI fix needed on the platform, I can jump into Bubble and update it right away," Olena explains. "It gives us agility — instead of waiting for engineering cycles, we can keep the platform polished and responsive."

From dozens of projects to life-changing impact

The transformation from manual operations to a Bubble-powered platform unlocked the scale EqualReach needed to fulfill its mission. 

"Now with the platform, we are able to facilitate dozens of projects per week, not just two or three, which is a game changer," Giselle says. "Our incentive is to create as many dignified jobs for refugees as possible. And we do that by having the capacity and infrastructure to do this well at scale."

The impact extends far beyond project volume. In its first year, EqualReach created more than 100 jobs for displaced professionals, who now earn four to 10 times higher wages than local alternatives in their host countries. The platform maintains a 9.75 out of 10 NPS (Net Promoter Score), reflecting satisfaction from both businesses and talent.

"We are able to facilitate dozens of projects per week, not just two or three, which is a game changer."

"Just last week, we had a project come in for a six-figure project that we can match to a team of refugee talent," Giselle shares. "If we can land a $50,000, $10,000, or even just a $2,000 project for one of our teams, the economic impact of what that enables in their region is really life-changing for these communities."

Scaling for greater impact

As EqualReach looks to 2026 — their "year for scaling" after 2025's focus on building — the platform continues to evolve. The team is developing a marketplace feature that will let clients shop for productized services from pre-vetted specialist teams around the world. They're also integrating AI to speed up project scope drafting and even coach teams through proposal development and client engagements. The team recently launched a Research and Reporting Toolkit with resources on blended impact reporting and inclusive sourcing.

"Once you have that solid foundation in place, it becomes so much easier to build out from there," Giselle says. "When we have a new product idea now, or a new piece of data that we want to collect, we've got that foundation and we can add on those new features much easier." That foundation — built on Bubble— is now changing lives across 13 countries, proving that the right tools can accelerate not just product development, but social impact at scale.