The Formation Of The Creative Campus At Goddard

Mike Davidson, Owner of Execusuite/Ledgeworks LLC, began purchasing the Goddard College campus in Plainfield in October, 2024, and finalized the sale in May, 2025. He found the Campus sale at its eleventh hour, just before the property was headed to auction.

He saw the purchase of the beloved college campus as a chance to join with other visionary efforts throughout the state aimed at bringing housing, jobs and activity to flood ravaged, economically challenged jurisdictions and townships.

He immediately met with Goddard’s local community leaders to see if there was already a trusted vision for a reimagined, mixed-use Goddard campus, and found several strategic partners who would become the founders of The Creative Campus (TCC) non-profit at Goddard.

This team knew and loved the legacy of Goddard College, and imagined how they could preserve this legacy by inviting new communities of interest to bring their creative work and aligned missions to program in Goddard’s hallowed spaces.

Since the finalization of Davidson’s acquisition of the Goddard Campus in May, 2025, he has focused his investment on four distinct campus-reuse development paths: Non-profit leasing; Affordable housing; Hospitality; and the start-up of programming under The Creative Campus mission.

Together, Mike Davidson and The Board Of The Creative Campus are stewarding a transformation of the historic campus into a community-centered hub for the arts, lifelong learning, and nonprofit collaboration.

The effort protects and incorporates the legacy of Goddard College, but introduces a new key component: committing to strategic partnership with the municipality of Plainfield.

Acting as a hub for the campus’s Lessee community, and as a host and curator organization for meetings and events, arts, education and wellness programs in Goddard’s historic Greatwood buildings, TCC promises to become a new innovative economic driver for its municipality and region, bringing many new jobs and housing units to the devastated area.

Early Success

Including itself, TCC now hosts eight lessee non-profit organizations on campus. These organizations occupy the Elliot Pratt Center, The Community Center, and six of the dorm buildings in Goddard’s old Village For Learning.

Known on campus as TCC’s Lessee Community, these seven organizations are Elevate Youth, Connected Circles, Maple Hill School, Farmers To You, Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, WGDR/Central Vermont Community Radio, and Washington County Mental Health Preschool.

Goddard’s old dorms, and some offices, have been transitioned into more than 60 short-term lodgings and affordable housing units. There is now The Haybarn Restaurant and Lounge, a restaurant and pub with a stage in the Community Center’s old mail room, and a wedding facility in the Greatwood Manor and Gardens.

Since its incorporation in July, 2025, TCCs pilot launch of programming has been very well received by the various learning-based communities of Goddard’s past, the municipality and surrounding towns.

In its first six months of formation, TCC has hosted just shy of twenty local school and business retreats and summits, municipal planning forums, a weekend long wedding party and nearly thirty live arts events in the Haybarn Theatre, and on Greatwood grounds.

TCC’s mission for multi-cultural and DEI literacy aims to bring the best in world music and progressive theater to the under-served communities of Central and Northern VT. Fifty percent of initial TCC programming in the Haybarn has been sold-out, and the other fifty percent were between three quarters and two thirds sold.

This success rate is up more than forty percent from the last incarnation of a Haybarn series, which ran from 2012 to 2016. This programming has already created four new jobs on campus, and TCC is now fundraising to secure these jobs, and the rich programming they steward for the region.

We invite you to join us in bringing this dream fully to life — for the campus, for the community, and for the generations who will walk these grounds long after us.

A New Model for Rural Vitality

As small towns across America struggle with loss of gathering spaces, economic instability, and the erosion of community cohesion, the Creative Campus stands as a different kind of possibility: a community-anchored cultural and learning hub that strengthens the local economy, nurtures human connection, and keeps the arts alive.

Why Your Support Matters

This renaissance is still young. It needs belief, it needs partners who understand what a place like this makes possible, and it needs investment. Your support helps

• Bring exceptional arts and performances to the Haybarn again

• Expand lifelong learning programs for youth, adults, and elders

• Create affordable space for local nonprofits and creative enterprises

• Build a sustainable model that ensures the campus thrives for generations

Places like this don’t just enrich a community — they sustain it. Your support helps bring new life to a historic campus that has long been a cultural and creative heartbeat in Vermont.

At a time when many small towns are losing gathering spaces and cultural anchors, your contribution ensures this campus remains a vibrant, accessible, community-centered resource for Central Vermont and beyond.

Your generosity helps carry forward a legacy of creativity, inquiry, and belonging — shaping a place where community and campus thrive together.

Your gift doesn’t just fund programs, it fuels a renaissance, it keeps the arts alive, and it ensures that this campus remains a home for imagination, inspiration, and community for decades to come.

Levels for Giving and Underwriting

TCC is currently seeking grants, major donor and sponsor support to reach its goals of $50,000 seasonally, $200,000 annually, which will match TCCs programming revenue (grant programs spotlighted: RPPL; NBRC Catalyst,T4T, FEP; BGS; Better Connections; VCF). If you’d like to support The Creative Campus at Goddard, you can give at any level.  

Underwriter’s of TCC programming can choose from the list below of sponsor levels and associated benefits. Please consider giving the gift of giving, by sponsoring TCC programming in the name of someone (or something) you love.

TCC Supporter - $300:

Brand logo on program poster; and donor level mention in our annual thank-you letter.

TCC Change-Maker - $500:

Brand logo on program poster; donor level mention in our annual thank-you letter; and two complimentary tickets to program.

TCC Steward - $750:

Mention from the stage; brand logo on program poster; donor level mention in our annual thank-you letter; and two complimentary tickets to program.

TCC Igniter - $1,000:

Banner hung at event; mention from the stage; brand logo on program poster; donor level mention in our annual thank-you letter; and two complimentary tickets to program.

TCC Champion - $1,500:

Banner hung at two events of choice; donor level mention in our annual thank-you letter; brand logo on two program posters; mention from the stage at two programs; and two complimentary tickets to two programs.

TCC Sustainer - $1,750:

Banner hung at three events of choice; donor level mention in our annual thank-you letter; brand logo on three program posters; mention from the stage at three programs; and two complimentary tickets to three programs.

TCC Gold Patron - $2,000:

Banner hung at four events of choice; donor level mention in our annual thank-you letter; brand logo on four program posters; mention from the stage at four programs; and two complimentary tickets to four programs.

TCC Platinum Patron - $3,000:

Banner hung at five events; donor level mention in our annual thank-you letter; brand logo on five program posters; mention from the stage at five programs; two complimentary tickets to five programs of choice; and an invitation to major donor’s diner at The Haybarn Restaurant and Lounge.

TCC Series Promoter - $10,000:

Banner hung at all events for one year; donor level mention in our annual thank-you letter; brand logo on all program posters for one year; mention from the stage at all programs for one year; two complimentary tickets to ten programs of choice; and an invitation to major donor’s diner at The Haybarn Restaurant and Lounge.

TCC Founder’s Circle - $25,000 and above:

Special invitation to TCC Founder’s Advisory Board (TCC’s FAB); banner hung at all events for one year; donor level mention in our year’s end thank-you letter; brand logo on all program posters for one year; mention from the stage at all programs for one year; two complimentary tickets to ten programs; and an invitation to major donor’s diner at The Haybarn Restaurant and Lounge.