# The TARA Group

> The TARA Group is a privately held operating group for public-affairs, political-data, research, media and outreach businesses. Its distinctive move is organizational: portfolio companies keep their own leaders, clients and cultures while TARA centralizes HR, legal, IT and finance and lets the firms combine capabilities when a campaign needs data, insight, advertising and human outreach in one system.

- **Founded:** 2016
- **Headquarters:** Orlando, United States
- **Founders:** Jeff Ferguson (Co-Founder and Partner), Drew Brighton (Co-Founder and Partner)
- **Products:** TargetSmart, TARA Media, Statara, Integral Resources, Shared operating services
- **Notable:** Reorganized multiple businesses under The TARA Group umbrella in 2016., Appointed Tom Bonier as the group's first CEO in 2023 after he led TargetSmart for nearly a decade., Completed a SOC 2 Type II audit covering flagship products used across operating companies for the period April 1 to July 2, 2025.

## Products & services

- **TargetSmart** — Voter and consumer data, list building, data enhancement, polling, analytics, organizing tools and a self-serve media-buying platform for Democratic campaigns and progressive organizations.
- **TARA Media** — Integrated digital media planning and execution across programmatic display, social, connected TV, online video, digital out-of-home, podcast and radio.
- **Statara** — Audience identity data, polling, focus groups, social listening, predictive modeling, dashboards, consulting and multi-channel campaign execution for associations, companies, universities and nonprofits.
- **Integral Resources** — Contact-center fundraising, grassroots outreach and constituent services by phone, text and email; acquired by TargetSmart in 2022.
- **Shared operating services** — Central HR, legal, IT and finance for independently run portfolio companies, intended to reduce duplicate overhead and let specialist teams focus on clients.

## Achievements

- Reorganized multiple businesses under The TARA Group umbrella in 2016.
- Appointed Tom Bonier as the group's first CEO in 2023 after he led TargetSmart for nearly a decade.
- Completed a SOC 2 Type II audit covering flagship products used across operating companies for the period April 1 to July 2, 2025.
- TargetSmart reports serving thousands of organizations since 2006.
- The National Voter List Management Cooperative reports more than $11 million transferred to member state parties since 2012 through its TargetSmart-brokered model.
- A 2025 TargetSmart campaign across six New Jersey Assembly races reported 8.5 million impressions and six wins on $405,000 in total spend.
- TargetSmart's 2026 VoterBase update reported 210.3 million registered voter records with enriched demographic coverage.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — TargetSmart announced an expanded VoterBase with 210.3 million registered voter records carrying enriched demographic data.
- **2026-08** — TargetSmart announced a partnership with Victory Waves to pair voter data with AI-assisted petition-signature validation.
- **2026-06** — TARA chief innovation officer Hamid Qayyum discussed TargetSmart's programmatic political-advertising work with Nexxen.
- **2025-07** — The TARA Group completed a SOC 2 Type II audit covering shared flagship products.
- **2025-01** — TARA partnered with Activist Technologies; Tom Bonier joined its board.

## Links

- Website: https://thetara.group
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thetaragroup

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/the-tara-group
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-20