The inaugural Democracy Challenge took place during the final session of the Manning Networking Conference 2010. Inspired by the popular CBC Television program 'The Dragon’s Den,' political entrepreneurs with good ideas for revitalizing democracy and the role of conservatism therein were invited to submit proposals to be judged by an expert panel which included Cliff Fryers, the Chairman of our Board; Deborah Grey, the former MP; and Brett Wilson, the Calgary businessman and philanthropist who is also a Dragon’s Den panelist.

We received more than two dozen proposals which were whittled down to five. Each of the final five was given an opportunity to make a brief presentation to the panel in front of the entire Conference and to be subjected to intense questioning. In the end, the winning proposal from Leah Costello, formerly the Events and Communications Coordinator with the Fraser Institute, for her idea to create an interactive “Book, Video, and Training Guide” for conservative communicators. Leah was awarded a performance contract with the Manning Centre and the $10,000 prize to implement her proposal.

The two other proposals which also received very high marks from the panel were:
- A proposal by Fred Litwin of the Free Thinking Film Society to conduct an annual film festival in Ottawa featuring freedom and market-oriented films. We hope to work with Fred to make such a film festival part of our annual Networking Conference next year.
- A proposal submitted by Kate Bahen of Charity Intelligence Canada which proposes the establishment of a Social Capital Market to facilitate the financing of charities through “social investments” requiring a degree of transparency, accountability, and measurability more closely resembling that of business investments. Brett Wilson was so impressed with her proposal that he threw in an extra $5,000 in support of its continued development, and we will endeavour to incorporate the concept of “social capital markets” into conservative social policy development.

It is our intention to make the Democracy Challenge a regular feature of our annual Networking Conference. We also want to increase the amount of the prize money awarded in order to make the Challenge even more attractive and worthwhile for conservative-oriented political entrepreneurs to participate.