The strange thing about a microphone is that it records only the last few seconds of a decision. It does not record the weeks spent discovering which neighbors feel ignored, the argument over the exact verb in the second paragraph, or the moment somebody asks the useful question: if this goes wrong, who answers the phone? Rise Strategy Group works in those missing minutes. The Chicago communications firm helps companies, public agencies, nonprofits, causes and campaigns decide what to say, who needs to hear it and what must happen before anyone believes it.
On its face, Rise looks like a broad public relations shop. The menu runs from media relations and crisis management to polling, digital strategy, advertising, photography, video and event production. But menus can conceal the meal. The more revealing fact is where its people learned to cook: television news, political campaigns, government offices, national law, nonprofit storytelling and public affairs.
Founder and CEO Tarrah Cooper Wright began as a television reporter. She later organized in Florida for the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign, worked on national incident messaging at the Department of Homeland Security and spent five years as press secretary to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Those jobs share a brutal feature. Feedback arrives quickly, often in public, and it is rarely phrased as constructive criticism.
The three-room problem
Institutional communication usually fails in translation. A sentence that pleases the legal department can bewilder a resident. A slogan that performs on social media can irritate the reporter who asks for evidence. A policy explanation can be accurate and still sound evasive when delivered by an unprepared executive. The real assignment is not to produce one perfect message. It is to make one honest idea survive several rooms.
Run every message through three rooms.
What is new? What can be checked? Which sentence collapses under a second question?
Who carries the consequence? Who was consulted before the announcement arrived?
Can the leader say it plainly? Can the organization actually do what the message promises?
Rise has organized its services around this translation problem. Media relations handles the newsroom. Community engagement and coalition building handle the neighborhood. Strategic planning, training and crisis preparation force the institution to align its words with its capacity. Digital content and paid media distribute the result. Polling tests whether the intended meaning survived the trip.
“Winning hearts. Changing minds.”Rise Strategy Group's own compact description of the job
A civic firm with receipts
Agency claims are typically foggy: influence, impact, reach. Government procurement is less poetic. It names the work, the term and the ceiling. In late 2025, Cook County approved Rise for a $250,000 communications-support contract covering writing, video and design, media and external relations, and media buying. The initial period runs two years, with renewal options.
Then, in March 2026, Chicago Housing Authority materials recommended Rise for a much larger strategic media relations and communications assignment: a three-year base term plus two optional years, worth no more than $1,195,200. The base value was listed at $712,800; each option year at $241,200. The structure mixed fixed and blended rates and included contingency room for ad hoc work. A filing said Rise expected to perform 91.63 percent of the work itself, with a Section 3 subcontractor handling the balance.
What the visible work costs
Those figures do not reveal private retainers or total revenue. They do show the business model clearly enough. Rise sells experienced judgment through projects and longer contracts. Clients are buying a standing ability to write, listen, place media, prepare leaders, produce content and respond when the planned calendar is replaced by events.
What the work looks like
The firm's public footprint is unusually civic. Rise and Rudd Resources were selected in 2019 as agencies of record for the Cook County Land Bank Authority, with an assignment to increase awareness and help turn vacant properties into community assets. Rise has handled media outreach for the Chicago Architecture Center. It supports Community Investment Corporation, the nonprofit lender focused on affordable rental housing, including a 2025 mural project that drew more than 150 artist submissions.
Its published client material has named Related Midwest, Illinois Medical District, University of Chicago, University of Chicago Medicine, NextLevel Health, ComEd and Rebuild Foundation. An archived work page describes a familiar sequence: create a steady flow of credible coverage, engage community members and elected officials, produce events, broaden the stakeholder base and elevate leaders as experts. The firm also credits itself with work that helped defeat Cook County's sweetened beverage tax.
Polling, stakeholder mapping and community engagement identify the argument before creative work begins.
Strategy, messaging and content turn institutional complexity into language a person might repeat.
Earned media, digital channels, advertising and events move the message into different rooms.
Training and crisis planning help leaders answer the next question without abandoning the first answer.
The staffing makes the positioning more than a slogan. Chief Content Officer and partner Tara Swords is a writer focused on stakeholder stories. Executive Vice President Darlene Hill brings more than three decades in media and storytelling. Other public biographies include experience with the Democratic Party of Illinois, Senator Tammy Duckworth, the Illinois Senate President's office, national legal communications, English- and Spanish-language media relations, design and nonprofit work. Rise says it now has offices in Chicago and Los Angeles.
The thing worth copying
A company does not need to hire an agency to borrow the central discipline. Before publishing, write down three names: the reporter most likely to challenge the claim, the community member most likely to live with the result, and the executive who must defend the decision. Show each person the same core sentence. If it requires three incompatible explanations, the strategy is not ready.
This works only when communication is attached to real authority. No amount of message testing can rescue a false claim, a leader who will not answer questions or a community process begun after the decision is final. The sequence matters: listen, decide, prove, then amplify. Reverse it and public relations becomes decoration.
That is also where Rise fits in a crowded market. Large global agencies can offer scale, proprietary research and offices everywhere. Specialist political shops can offer partisan machinery. Digital studios can make abundant content. Rise occupies the overlap: a women- and minority-owned boutique with campaign reflexes, newsroom skepticism and local civic fluency, capable of carrying a client from a neighborhood meeting to a television interview without pretending those are the same room.
The microphone remains the visible object. It is the preparation around it that clients pay for. On a calm day, that preparation produces a clearer story. On a difficult one, it may be the difference between an institution that merely speaks and one that can still be heard.