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Moms for Liberty, one of the fastest-growing and most recognized conservative parent advocacy groups in the nation, paid $21,357 to a company owned by the husband of one of its founding members, campaign finance records show. 

The group to Microtargeted Media, founded by Christian Ziegler, a current Sarasota County commissioner and vice chairman of the Florida GOP, in late August. 

Moms for Liberty was founded by three people, Tina Descovich, Tiffany Justice and , Christian鈥檚 wife, who served as its director through February 2021. Bridget Ziegler joined the Sarasota County School Board in 2014 and this summer. 

 She was not named by the two other founders in numerous , an omission some was meant to distance the group from Florida鈥檚 GOP power structure. Descovich said Ziegler stepped away to pursue other interests. Moms for Liberty contributed $250 to her school board campaign in mid-July, records show. 

Bridget Ziegler could not be reached for comment. Her husband, who responded to 蜜桃影视 through Twitter Thursday evening, would not discuss his company’s work for Moms for Liberty.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 share information about my clients as I do not speak for them,鈥� Christian Ziegler wrote. 鈥淵ou can contact Tina directly for any additional insight.鈥�

Descovich said they hired Microtargeted Media 鈥� whose motto is “we do digital & go after people on their phones” 鈥� based on its track record.

鈥淚 chose to work with Mr. Ziegler鈥檚 company because we required digital media services and they are the best at what they do,鈥� she wrote. 

She also acknowledged the group鈥檚 support for his wife鈥檚 run for office. 

鈥淭he Florida Political Committee supported candidates that the Moms for Liberty chapters endorsed,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he Sarasota chapter voted to endorse Mrs. Ziegler.鈥�

, which specializes in targeted text messaging and digital advertising, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars from right-wing political campaigns. Its recent clients also include Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters, chairman of the Florida GOP and an ardent Trump supporter. His campaign paid the company . 

Florida Conservatives United, a PAC, has paid Microtargeted Media . 

The revelation that Moms for Liberty used a sizable chunk of its political contributions to benefit the company of its co-founder鈥檚 husband provides at least some insight into how the conservative juggernaut used what appears to be its modest campaign finances. 

The Federal Elections Commissions lists three committees associated with the group, which claims 240 chapters in 42 states: Moms for Liberty PAC, Moms for Liberty Inc. Political Victory Fund and Moms for Liberty Action. All three reported zero dollars in contributions or expenditures with the exception of a single to Moms for Liberty PAC on Aug. 29 from Ohio resident Matthew Palumbo, whose long political career includes working for former President Donald Trump鈥檚 2016 campaign.

Bravo!

— Matthew J. Palumbo (@MattPalumbo)

Descovich, the group鈥檚 executive director, told 蜜桃影视 it has not raised or spent any money from its national PACs, though it hopes to use them in the future to support school board candidates around the country. She said Moms for Liberty has one state-level political committee, Moms for Liberty Florida.

Almost all of the money donated to Moms for Liberty Florida came from a $50,000 donation from Publix heiress Julie Fancelli in late June and nearly half of it went to Microtargeted Media. The contribution from Fancelli, of the Jan. 6 rally that led to the attack on the Capitol, accounted for all but $837 of the cash raised by Moms for Liberty Florida. Almost all the rest of the committee’s funds went in $250 donations to dozens of politically aligned Florida school board candidates.

Descovich said to date, Moms for Liberty has endorsed 65 candidates in Florida with 43 either declared a winner or advancing to a runoff; 72 candidates statewide in New York, with 40 victorious; three school board candidates in Kenosha, Wisconsin, two of whom won; two candidates in Bedford County, Virginia, both of them successful and seven endorsed in North Carolina, with five winning seats. Most school board elections will be Nov. 8, she said, and the group is working to get endorsement tallies from its chapters. 

Moms for Liberty鈥檚 2021 federal tax filing shows the 501(c)4 nonprofit with $370,029 in total revenue and $163,647 in expenses, with most of that money 鈥� $102,486 鈥� going to conferences, conventions and meetings. It lists Descovich as spending an average of 40 hours a week working for the organization and receiving $5,000 in compensation; program development director Marie Rogerson also working on average 40 hours a week and receiving $1,800 while Justice, whose title is director, spent 40 hours a week but received no compensation. Ziegler, the former director, spent an average of one hour a week, according to the filing, and received zero compensation. Descovich said Moms for Liberty has 10 full- and two part-time staffers.

Moms for Liberty Foundation, the group鈥檚 501(c)3 charitable arm which is prohibited from engaging in political activities, claimed gross receipts of less than $50,000 in 2021 and filed an abbreviated 990 form with the Internal Revenue Service that includes no details about its funders, expenditures or top officers鈥� salaries.

The group, which has ,  has been successful in curbing classroom discussion of race, sex and gender 鈥� while also from school curriculum and libraries, though some schools have brought such texts back. 

Moms for Liberty鈥檚 leaders have said in the past they鈥檝e raised most of their money through T-shirt sales and have grown through free publicity. celebrates its leaders 鈥� they鈥檝e appeared on Steve Bannon鈥檚 talk show 鈥� while mainstream press have also kept them in the spotlight, if at times offering less flattering coverage of them deriding school board members.

Despite their high-wattage name recognition, some and staying power. Campbell F. Scribner, assistant professor of education at the University of Maryland at College Park, said they could soon flounder as members might not have the time or capacity to devote themselves to activism in the long term. 

Campbell called Moms for Liberty and another highly watched group, The 1776 Project Political Action Committee, which has raised $3 million to advocate for conservative school board candidates nationally this year, 鈥渁 weird combination of single-issue organizing,鈥� in this case around the topic of education, 鈥渁nd a fairly diffuse set of goals 鈥� either focused on a hot-topic issue that will fade quickly, like CRT [critical race theory] 鈥� or on goals that are too amorphous to actually be accomplished, like 鈥榩atriotism.鈥欌�欌�� 

Scribner doesn鈥檛 consider either to be solely 鈥済rassroots.鈥� Both have a top-down and bottom-up structure, he said. 

鈥淚t would be dangerous to put them in one camp or another,鈥� he said. 鈥淭o ignore their grassroots element is to ignore their appeal and power. But they do need to align with public sentiment and when they don鈥檛, their support withers pretty quickly.鈥�

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