Strategic Thinking
Creative Messaging
Project Management
We Are Ascendant.
Ascendant Communities brings a unique vision and model to community growth, and to the agencies and organizations that serve those communities. We formed Ascendant after years of experience helping to build and grow some of Vermont’s top brands as The Imagination Company. In that role, along with advising 
business, institutional, and political leadership, we produce and deliver every aspect of creative messaging, from branding and design to filmmaking and website development all under one roof, very affordably.
With Ascendant, our focus is on reversing the trends affecting nearly every Vermont community by helping to revitalize downtown areas, grow residency, and attract new business investment and visitors. We think it’s important to be be bold, in vision and action, while pursuing this growth and change.
THE IMAGINATION HOUSE RETREAT
A basic lesson learned while working with a very diverse range of clients is the importance of a deep and clear understanding of their goals, challenges and opportunities. Over the years we’ve also seen how sequestering with clients at our farm has been very valuable in taking this understanding and relationship building to another level.
Inspired by this, we launched the Imagination House Creative Retreat – a uniquely designed cottage situated in a 125-acre mountainside forest. Our approach is to remove everyone from any distractions and into a natural and relaxing environment. We like to think of it as our little Green Mountain Camp David.
What We Do
We Advance Communities.
We can provide the strategic thinking and creative messaging to help spur community growth and economic development. And when it comes to storytelling, we produce every aspect – from web development and design to filmmaking and digital campaigns – from our mountainside studios in Central Vermont.
We Enhance Organizations.
Working with partners in different cities and towns has always brought us together with local and regional NGOs as well as various State agencies. So it was a natural evolution to begin working directly with organizations to help meet their goals and challenges, as part of the Ascendant model. The work tends to be inspiring, creatively challenging and gratifying, which is a pretty ideal trifecta for us.
We’re Project Managers.
We’re skilled at taking different types of projects from initial concept to final delivery, on tight budgets and timelines. We take a very hands-on approach to executing detailed action plans as well as designing and creating unique commercial spaces, educational environments and creative renovations.
How We Can Work Together
The Full Monty.
Our fundamental approach to community growth is very similar to what is considered a rebranding campaign for our business clients. We start with a deep dive into the culture, people and assets of a community in order to understand its unique strengths. We then write, film, photograph and produce the content – often producing a new website – to tell its story in the most compelling way. The ultimate goal is to then attract people to the website and storytelling through an ongoing, creative, digital campaign.
Give Us A Project.
We love to take on specific projects, short term and long term, and guide them to completion. We start with research and strategic thinking before developing an efficient action plan. From there we are hands on, in whatever ways necessary, to bring the project to fruition on the established budget and timeline.
Put Us On Your Team.
It’s not unusual for a community to lack all of the budgetary resources to plan and manage their growth needs. By working with Ascendant on an “as needed” basis, you can add our depth of experience to your existing brain trust to help with your goals, challenges and opportunities…affordably.