In today’s society, technology and social media have become huge necessities for how the majority of us live our everyday lives, and their impact just continues to grow.

Whether to interact with others, access information, raise awareness or stay connected with the everyday happenings of the world, the use and reliance on social media is here to stay.

Understanding this reality, a team of innovative, tech savvy, entrepreneurial minds with decades of experience in the nonprofit, business and tech spaces, came together to create a new social media platform with a larger purpose and greater mission. 

This led to the launch of ImpactWayv, a social impact platform that unites people, businesses and nonprofits with the mission to make a positive impact and drive social good. 

“We wanted to step up the game basically,” said Dan Rubino, co-founder, chairman and CEO of ImpactWayv, Inc., in an interview with AL DÍA. 

ImpactWayv is designed to provide a more meaningful alternative to the major social media and networking platforms. Its function is to create an ecosystem of individuals, businesses and nonprofits that are tied to driving positive change on a grand scale.  

Just over six months since its launch, the app has become one of the most popular and highest rated on the app store. 

“We’re proving ourselves out there because people want this, they need it,” added Rubino. 

While social media platforms have its pros and cons, for many, the cons may outweigh the benefits. ImpactWayv aims to remove the negativity that may be associated with other social media platforms. 

“We're here to really create the go-to platform for social good,” added Benji Bernstein, co-founder, executive vice president and chief technology officer of ImpactWayv Inc. 

“Whether it be businesses, people or nonprofits, we want everybody to sort of see ImpactWayv as the hub for all things, all happenings, and really all types of collaboration around all sorts of different social good topic areas [and] issue areas, in a way that only technology and social media can really allow for.”

What’s in a Name?

The name and spelling of the app is both deliberate and intentional. 

“We are the first social media platform focused on social impact, so the ‘impact’ portion was a no-brainer. Our original idea was to use this as a means to transform social good, transform philanthropy,” said George C. Dolatly, president, director, co-founder of ImpactWayv, Inc.

“People have great ideas, they have great intentions, they want to do good, and they want it to be as far reaching as possible. So they have the will, we want to provide the way,” he added. 

The ‘wayv’ portion of the app name is spelled in this manner to express how the app provides a way for people’s will to make the world a better place. 

“What we see with the bringing together of individuals and companies and not-for-profits is the ability to exponentially increase their influence and effect and for there to be a wave of social good,” Dolatly explained. 

The app currently features more than 60 different topics, social causes and sectors — dubbed as “wayvs.” 

Some of the “wayvs” include civic engagement, climate action, DEI, environment, gender equality, mental health, social justice and more. 

“They essentially serve as the entire organizing framework of the platform,” said Bernstein. 

Karen Talamelli Cusick, executive vice president of ImpactWayv, Inc., highlighted the influence users have had on the progression of the app. 

“We've added several ‘wayvs’ that have come out of user experience,” she said. “It was a part of everything we did to make it meaningful and healthy.”

Through the app, users are able to select any of the listed causes and find a number of organizations, businesses and nonprofits directing activities towards that social good space. 

In addition, users can create and join conversations pertaining to that particular issue.

Partnering with the Miss Universe Organization

One of the many purposes of the annual Miss Universe pageant is to crown a contestant who is a strong advocate for humanitarian causes and can serve as a voice for positive global change. 

This aligns exactly with the purpose of the ImpactWayv app.

For that reason, partnering with the Miss Universe Organization was “a natural partnership,” said Dolatly. 

“Contestants came on the platform, talked about what was important to them and about what they were doing. We made it fun. It was also a mini competition within the Miss Universe competition for the contestants in the weeks leading up to the pageant itself to garner impacts based on their posts and the interactions they had with our other users,” he added.  

Included in the partnership was the creation and distribution of the ImpactWayv Award, which went to one of the pageant contestants with the best social project toward helping the environment. 

The ImpactWayv Award would eventually go to Miss Chile Antonia Figueroa, who is very passionate about creating social impact relating to the environment.

Miss Universe 2021, Harnaaz Kaur Sandhu of India, is passionate about the cause of women empowerment, and the ImpactWayv app has helped her advance her efforts. 

“It was a great example of what collection action could do, and it was a great example of what our platform could contribute to that collective action,” said Dolatly of the partnership.

To this end, Rubino highlighted the global reach the platform has, making it possible to effectively partner with the Miss Universe Organization, along with users from all around the world. 

“When you get down to what our focus is, in terms of social good and making sure that their communications on the platform [and] the interactions on the platform are purposeful and meaningful, it was a perfect, perfect match with the Miss Universe [Organization] because that's what they're all about,” said Rubino. 

“​​Country by country, they want to do better for their individual countries, they want to do better for their community, they want to do better for their people, and that's what sort of brought us to that connection. And we're very, very happy that we had the opportunity to do something like that with them because we think that we added quite a bit,” he continued.

The goal is to create similar partnerships with local, national and global organizations, all with an eye towards advancing the cause of social good. 

The ImpactWayv Ambassador Program

Throughout history, the younger, up-and-coming generations have often been the driving force behind social good and positive impact.

Bernstein noted the fact that more than 80% of the ImpactWayv users are Millennials and Generation Zers. 

“Those demographics are very critical to the platform,” he noted. “And one of the concepts that we love… is this ‘creators for social good’ concept.” 

He likened it to the “creators” function on Tik Tok, and envisions ImpactWayv eventually becoming a home for creators determined to make a positive social impact. 

To facilitate the realization of this vision, the team launched the ImpactWayv Ambassador Program. 

The program produces students and young professionals whose role is to inspire other like-minded individuals to adopt ImpactWayv as a core social media platform, and use it in fun and creative ways, while remaining focused on the purpose of social good. 

“What we wanted to do was to have a self-sustaining platform where people could come on, they can create, they can unite, they could even make money, if they have the right idea [and] they could become creators/influencers,” added Rubino.  

“But the underlying thesis, again, is social good.”

The social good component is the main difference between ImpactWayv and other social media platforms. 

The effectiveness of the posts on the app is determined by impact as opposed to likes, commonplace in various other platforms. 

“That's kind of our new engagement metric,” said Bernstein. “And it's all designed to measure the amount of positive awareness and action you're actually spreading around the different wayvs [and] around the different causes that you're posting about.”

ImpactWayv is currently available for download on the Apple App Store for iPhone users, and will soon also be available for Android users.