The Democracy Alliance is a partnership of business and philanthropic leaders who commit to making make human and financial donations to organizations the Alliance has endorsed. Since its founding in 2005, the Alliance has helped direct nearly $150 million to progressive organizations.

A PowerPoint presentation, "The Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix", created by Rob Stein and shown to individuals and small groups of donors in 2003 and 2004, is often credited as being the impetus for the group's formation.. It was formed with major backing from George Soros and Tim Gill

The first meeting of the Democracy Alliance was held at The Boulders near Scottsdale, Arizona in April 2005. Rob Stein, who created the PowerPoint presentation, "The Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix", was installed as temporary CEO, pending the group's selection of a permanent leader.

At the Democracy Alliance's second meeting, held at the Chateau Elan near Atlanta, Georgia in October 2005, management consultant Judy Wade was installed as the CEO of the organization. At the group's fourth meeting in Miami in November 2006, Wade was replaced with Kelly Craighead.

Anna Burger, (born September 27, 1950), was the Secretary-Treasurer of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Chair of the Change to Win Federation.

In February, 2009, Burger was appointed as a member to the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the president and his administration with advice and counsel in fixing America's economic downturn.

Burger, born in Levittown, Pennsylvania, and daughter of a disabled truck driver and a nurse, began her activist career in 1972 as a Welfare worker. It was there she became involved in her local union. Burger organized a walkout in efforts to create a safer working environment for the office. Burger became more active in her union, and quickly moved through the ranks of the local union. Burger became SEIU local 668's first full-time woman president before moving onto the SEIU International office in Washington, DC, to work as National Director of Field Operations, under former SEIU president John Sweeney. Burger successfully ran Sweeney's campaign for president of the AFL-CIO. She was elected Executive Vice President of SEIU, and Secretary-Treasurer in 2001, and announced her retirement on August 11th, 2010.

Byron York (born 1958) is a conservative American columnist for the Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor, and author who lives in Washington, D.C.

York is the Chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner, a post he joined in early 2009 following his work as White House correspondent for National Review magazine and a columnist for The Hill. He is also a syndicated columnist.

He has also written for The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and New York Post, among other publications. A frequent guest on television and radio, he has appeared on such programs as Meet the Press, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, Tim Russert, Special Report with Brit Hume, Laura Ingraham, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, and has contributed occasional commentaries to National Public Radio.

Before working for National Review, York was a news producer at CNN Headline News and an investigative reporter for The American Spectator. In 2001 York explored the misfortunes of his former employer in an essay written for The Atlantic, "The Life and Death of The American Spectator".

Kevin McHugh is an American pianist, composer and improviser. He has performed in a variety of groups and with notable musicians and teachers ranging from jazz drummer Billy Hart, saxophonist Gary Bartz, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, trombonist Robin Eubanks, Salah Ragab (Egyptian drummer for Sun Ra), trumpeter Peter Evans, Jovino Santos-Neto (flutist and pianist with Hermeto Pascoal), to Fugazi bassist Joe Lally, Japanese improvisers Tetuzi Akiyama and Hiroshi Hasegawa (Astro), punk bassist Mike Watt (The Minutemen, The Stooges) and Brazilian singer Zé de Riba. Besides working on blues, solo electronic music, noise rock, ballet and tap dance accompaniment, and musical improv comedy, Kevin has also performed and recorded with the avant metal jazz everything band Capillary Action, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and BATS Improv.

Kevin McHugh has lived in or around cities including Seattle, Berlin, San Francisco, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, São Paulo, Mumbai and Cairo, performing as a leader or sideman in many prominent venues, and has toured over 20 countries and 100 cities in the United States. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Oberlin College and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 2006 he won a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to research the sound and music of megacities. He currently lives in Tokyo.