Why Every Nonprofit Needs Visibility: Core Legacy Feature on the Carry the Weight Walk Fundraiser

You can build the most meaningful nonprofit in the world, but if nobody knows it exists, it cannot do its work. That is the thread running through this bonus episode of the Visibility Impact Show, recorded live and on foot during Core Legacy's annual Carry the Weight Walk in Columbus, Ohio.

Crissy Conner walks with Airielle Dotson, founder of Core Legacy, a nonprofit serving young adults ages 18 to 24 who are navigating some of life's heaviest burdens. Airielle shares the deeply personal story behind why she started Core Legacy, growing up with a mother diagnosed with schizophrenia, a father whose drug addiction took his life when Airielle was 17 and a brother diagnosed with schizophrenia at 16. She carried shame and isolation for years because she never talked about it. Core Legacy was born out of that silence.

What started as a dream to create housing for young adults evolved into something smarter. By bringing trauma-informed programming directly to Carroll Stewart Village, a 62-unit renovated motel in Columbus where residents ages 16 to 24 can live for free, Core Legacy met people where they actually were. Not at the top of Maslow's pyramid asking people in survival mode to focus on self-actualization, but right at the foundation, building trust one last Friday of the month at a time.

Donate to Carry The Weight or sign up to walk: https://givebutter.com/helpcarrytheweight2026/hot-girl-walkers/crissyconner

Donate any time: https://corelegacy.org/donate/

Connect with Core Legacy

https://www.facebook.com/CoreLegacyColumbus

https://www.instagram.com/corelegacynpo/ 

The OMNI Method is a diversified visibility strategy built across social media, search and AI - designed for female entrepreneurs who want to be known, found and unforgettable without living online around the clock. If you are ready to build visibility that works harder than you do, learn more at https://thevisibleceo.com/omni 

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to the Visibility Impact Show. I am your host, Crissy Conner And today we have a bonus episode for you that is a little different than what we normally do here. However, let me just say this for anyone. You are building visibility. You are building a platform. You are building followers. You should be able to also use that platform that you're building for causes that you care about and you want to give additional visibility to. And that's what today's episode is about. I had the chance. To walk and talk with my friend Arielle, founder of Core Legacy, a nonprofit right here in Columbus, Ohio, that is doing incredible work for young adults age 18 to 24 who are navigating some of life's heaviest challenges. And I mean that literally and figuratively because we are doing her annual carry the weight walk while we recorded this episode. It's gonna sound a little different when you get to the meat of the episode, but you're gonna hear some heavy breathing. You're gonna hear us walking and talking. But it's real and it's raw, and I love it that way. Core Legacy does trauma-informed workshops every single month. They partner with Carol Stewart Village, they partner with the Byron Saunders Foundation, and every June they host this walk to raise awareness around adverse childhood experiences and the weight we carry from our past into our adult lives. We have a goal of $10,000 this month. We're already a tenth of the way there, two days in, and we would love your support, whether you donate, whether you join the walk or you simply share this episode. It all matters. Links to donate and learn more are all gonna be in the show notes. Let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Airielle from Core Legacy. So Airielle tell us why you started Core Legacy. Gosh. my last semester at Ohio State, I was able to intern in DC and it was such a great experience. I was able to live in the Capitol in an apartment with 15 other college students and I was immersed in this, you know, the energetic atmosphere of DC. But near the end of my experience, I realized I felt like I knew more about DC than Columbus. And as a first-generation college student who went to college on the Pell Grants, using different resources that were available, I felt like we could do more for. people in the age range of eighteen to twenty four. Um, and then on top of what I experienced growing up, my mom had bipolar disorder, which was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. My father had a drug addiction that took his life when I was seventeen. Then my brother, he's nine years younger than me, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was sixteen. So mental illness, addiction, all of that had an effect on me long past F far past the time I turned 18 and I felt very isolated because I carried a lot of shame. I shouldn't have, but I did around my past experiences. And it was because I never talked about it. So there was a few other people I knew who had similar backgrounds, and I asked them if they wanted to start this with me. Core legacy that is. And they did. But I used my experience in DC to sort of ignite it. I had this vision of Young men and women being immersed in this program where you're networking with professionals and you're learning about your city and you're just taking advantage of all the opportunity that's out there. So that's where the inspiration came from. So can you Share with my audience like what all does core legacy do? the inspiration came from my the program in DC. Initially we wanted to be a housing program. And I think eventually we still want to, but that takes a lot of capital. But in the beginning, we would try to recruit people to come and do programming with us. But because of Matsu's hierarchy hierarchy of needs, um, if somebody's not getting their basic needs met, like paying their bills, having food on the table, a roof over their head, they're not able to focus on there's a word for it that I'm missing. But they can't focus on their self actualization, which is at the top of Isn't the bottom like security? Yeah. Okay. Security and safety. So what we were trying to do is give them the top of the pyramid when they were living in survival mode. So we evolved into taking our programming to organizations that were giving them that foundation. And that's how we partnered with Carol Stewart Village. They are a nonprofit in Columbus that they renovated a motel. So a sixty two unit motel. Nice. And people can live there for free from the time they're sixteen to twenty four. And that's when they age out of the program. So we we do little workshops with them the last Friday of every month. So Okay. So you help between the ages of what again? Eighteen well, we specifically work with the residents of Carol Stewart Village. Mm-hmm. And I think the majority of them fall between the ages of eighteen and twenty four. Okay. Serving on average a year. I'd say oh so we have a consistent, you know, twelve, fifteen people who attend the workshops every month, but we provide services to all sixty-two residents. Okay. So we also partner with the Byron Sanders Foundation who donates Thanksgiving food to families in need over the holidays. So they provide sixty-two servings of non-perishable Thanksgiving food plus gift cards to Kroger. That the residents can use to build their own Thanksgiving meal. So in that way, we service all 62 residents. And then we also provide little Valentine's packs, Valentine's goodies to them during Valentine's Valentine's Day to spread the love. So we try to capture the the entire population. Last Friday we hosted a workshop and there were two individuals there. Who I'd never seen before. And I said, are you guys new here? And they said, No. We've been here since November, but we finally had the energy to put ourselves out there. So I felt like that was a very surreal moment to think about how long it can take to dig yourself out of survival mode when you're getting the those basic needs met. Right. So that was cool to be able to introdu introduce ourselves to them. We'll see if they show up next month. Or this month, I guess. Yeah. So when did you start Cork Legacy? In twenty nineteen. And what do you think has supported your nonprofit the most? People? Oh, that's a good question. I think in the beginning it was, you know, my friends and family, people in general, strangers who I've never met, who were donating to help us get our five one C three status. And then we had founding donors who helped continue build the foundation. And then partners like the Byron Sanders Foundation and Carol Stewart Village, who they're under Starhouse. So I think They've been incorporated since 2001. So these longstanding nonprofits who were willing to let us come in and meet the people they serve. Yeah. Coming from an coming from a nonprofit who serves a vulnerable population. I'm very picky about people who I invite into the space. Right. Because a lot of them deal with abandonment issues. Mm. So if people are just gonna come in temporarily and leave, it's not like what is it called? Like a dog and pony show. Yeah. Well, and you're protecting your clients basically and your and your and your people that you're serving. So you said a lot of nonprofits helped you. And I gotta ask, since, you know, my thing is visibility, how does visibility help your nonprofit Corle? Oh, that's such a good question. Um, I've been in some of your programs and I think about all the different ways I can be visible. I can this walk every year. I'm like, we need to get into the media. I mean, a lot of our momentum has come from social media and Facebook. With with your mo seeing your posts and your motivation, it reminds me to continue building my email list, sending out those those touch points to let our supporters. Keep them in the know with what we're doing. And it's our job to stay on the forefront of people's minds, right? Yeah. Yeah. We can build all the non profits we want, but if nobody knows about what's that mean? Nobody knows. They're invisible. No, it's easy to fall on the victim mindset. Like, people don't care about me and my business, my nonprofit, because they're not buying or they're not hitting the repost button. But I think it's deeper than that. Yeah. And people show their support in so many ways. Right. Everybody has a different love language and and love you language if you think about it. Hm. I think that's what I've seen the most in the six or seven years. Even like team members, people show people can only give what they have at that time, right? And it can look different today than it did last year or even next year. Right. Well, and I think everybody can serve differently too. Some people don't have the time, so it's easy for them to donate money. Some people don't have the money, so it's easier for them to donate their time. Yes. And it's like it all collectively works. Yes. And the experience is one too. I've had board members who they're not they're not able to give a lot of time or money, but they're very knowledgeable about the populations we're serve and they're able to provide insight into how we can support them better. So people have very unique brains. Very true. Yes. We're all diverse human beings. Yes. To to support and serve. So we are walking, if you hear the heavy breathing. We are walking because Core Legacy every June does a carry the weight walk. So I'm gonna let Airielle talk a little bit more about what this fundraiser is and how you can serve and support this fundraiser during the month of June. We wanted a fundraiser that our supporters can count on us doing every single year. Um, and then we landed on this walk. This is our sixth year doing it. That's crazy to think about. And people can sign up to walk. They can sign up to walk and fundraise, they can just cheer us on. We have a Facebook group that all of our walkers and supporters are in. They can hang out in the Facebook group and cheer on all the walkers and fundraisers, but there's different ways to get involved. Um, but the fundraisers, they walk a mile every day with some extra weight, can be physical weight or invisible weight. I don't know how much weight this is, but probably don't think she has ten pounds on. I have like four, so she's killing it. Interviewing her, we're walking and she's not breathing as hard as I am. I am hard so you can probably hear it. So they get sponsors for every mile they walk. Some people get sponsors for twenty-five dollars a day. Some people just get sponsors throughout the whole walk. It varies. My mission is to want to influence people to just get outside, get active, and get involved at any level they can. Cause I like the idea of just building a supportive community who Wants to improve their lives and cheer people on, and also bringing awareness to the mission that we have. So the backpacks, the weight, represents the weight we carry from our childhood trauma into adulthood. So just raising awareness around that and educating on, there's a term for it, adverse childhood experiences. It's called ACES. So educating around that. What's your goal for fundraising? Year it's ten thousand dollars. We're already at like a thousand Yes. So on June second, two days in, we're at a thousand. Two days in, a lot of people, and they're smart, they they try to get a lot of their fundraising out of the way before the walk happens so that they could just focus on walking. I find it easier to just take a selfie when I'm walking and then post it and get people to support me that way. I mean, there's no wrong way to be honest, but a tenth of the way there. A tenth the way. Yes. That's huge. All right. So whether they do the walk in June, donate to the walk in June, what are other ways that people can support Core Legacy, even if they're not in Ohio? If they're not in Ohio, we have a monthly donor program where you can sign up sign up to give monthly. I always say, obviously, we love big donors, but we like our small donors too because numbers matter. And when we're approaching partners, we can show them the number of supporters we have, whether they're donating a hundred a month or five dollars a month. The number of supporters matters too. And it means something when when we can show that our supporters aren't just local to Columbus. They're You know, from around the country or around the world. A hundred and our email subscriptions. Love it. So that's fun. One of our board members. All of our board members don't have nonprofit experience. So we're all learning. Yeah. As we're growing. But this is the first year when it comes to visibility. So I'm letting you guys in on business uh Secrets. This is our first year we did like a triggered email sequence. So when people sign up, when they donate for the first time, it triggers the sequence as a first-time donor. You didn't get this because we didn't we didn't make it live till like two days ago. But if people sign up to walk, they get a triggered email sequence. So we swear by done is better than perfect. So this is our first year where we've so success successfully done that. Other things would you like people to know about Core Legacy, the walk, anything I didn't ask? If you are local to Columbus, Ohio, we are looking for volunteers to help grow our workshop programs. So we meet on the last Friday of every month and we do different workshops focused on trauma-informed professional and personal development. We've done vision boards. Last year we just did a game night to to just bring people's walls down and just have fun. Yeah. I will say a lot of people may not know this, but across the board, nonprofits are getting funding cut from the government. So from January to April, we actually weren't able, I'm gonna make sure I had that right. January to March, we weren't able to do programming because Carol Sur Village didn't have the staff to support us those evenings. Yes. So they had to cut man hours and they had to cut positions. So for three months, the residents weren't weren't getting after hours activities. How did that affect? It may not seem like a lot for us because we can keep ourselves busy. And initially when we were when we were brainstorming what our programming would look like, we were wondering if doing it on a Friday n Friday night would be a good idea. Because a lot of people are like, We have better things to do on Friday nights, right? But no, we have many residents who show up. We provide pizza, so there's a lot of people who show up, eat the pizza, then leave. Yeah. But we end up getting eventually. They end up hanging out with us. Well, too. It is. It is. This specific popul I mean, for a lot of people, not just the pop this population. It takes time to build up like no and trust. Yeah. Yeah. Whether you're online, in person, yeah, dealing with a nonprofit and serving and supporting other people, everything just takes those touch bases. Yes. But they like showing up consistently. I feel like there's so many parallels right here to being visible. There is. There always is. But they've made a lot of comments how I think February or March was the year mark where we've been programming with Girls Thur Village and they've made a comment about how much it means to them that we're just there every single month and they can count on us to be there. So Where can people find Core Legacy? Like online, on social media, like what are all the handles? I think c Instagram is Core Legacy N PO. Facebook I think it's just Core Legacy. And then website is core legacy.org. Then we have an a LinkedIn too. But I Put all these in the we can put all these in the show notes too. And how you can donate. One thing that I'm doing, if you donate under my name, it all goes to the same place, by the way. But if you're a business owner and you want a shout out, I'm shouting you out on my social media and in my stories. So you get a little bit of marketing along with it. If you're not a business owner and don't care, you can donate to to any of the links that we're sharing. But you will definitely help support. Core legacy reaching this $10,000 goal. And again, we're already $1,000 there. Maybe even more now because we actually haven't looked online for a while. So we've been walking. But it all goes to a good cause. And again, whether you're local or outside of Ohio, you know, you can donate. And if you can't donate, find an organization close to you that you can serve and support. Because as Airielle was just talking about, I didn't even think about how much. Other non profits serve and support them. Yes. It takes a village And a village of nonprofits too to serve and support each other. So I love that.