She also joined the Conselho Nacional das Mulheres Portuguesas (National Council of Portuguese Women), founded by activist doctor Adelaide Cabete in 1914.
[1] In addition to her activism in the defence of women's rights and gender equality, Beirão was also a philanthropist, focusing on helping the most disadvantaged children and the elderly.
The Sarah Beirão and António Costa Carvalho Foundation was created in 1964, to operate a care home in Tábua for retired artists and writers of both sexes.
This brought together three thousand books by 1400 women authors from thirty countries, and filled the Great Hall of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon.
From the mid-1930s she was Director and Editor of, and regular contributor to, Alma Feminina magazine, published by the Conselho Nacional das Mulheres Portuguesas until that organization was closed by the authoritarian Estado Novo regime in 1947.