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Copyright © 2015 by Paul Shoemaker. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Shoemaker, Paul, 1961-
Can’t not do: the compelling social drive that changes our world / Paul Shoemaker
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-119-13159-5 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-119-13160-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-13161-8 (ebk)
1. Social problems. 2. Social action. 3. Social change. I. Title.
HN18.3.S56 2015
303.4–dc23
2015016669
PROLOGUE: THE POWER OF CAN'T NOT DO
I remember everything and nothing about August 9, 2013. I was sitting in a Seattle coffee shop when an e-mail flashed into my inbox. It was from a Wall Street Journal reporter I'd never heard of, asking if I knew anything about “the person whose plane had just crashed in East Haven, Connecticut.” I had no idea what the reporter was talking about and assumed he had the wrong guy. I reread it just to be sure and hit delete.
Moments later, my phone rang. Through a flood of tears, my friend Susan asked me not talk to any media or answer their calls. Then she told me why. After she hung up, the next flood of tears was down my face. I prayed, desperate for some miracle, any miracle, but I knew the truth. I actually knew a lot about the person whose plane had crashed. Susan had just lost her remarkable husband and her beautiful son. Another family, on the ground, had lost their two wonderful young girls with their whole lives ahead of them. And we all lost a damn good man.
That damn good man was Bill Henningsgaard. He had spent the first 20 years of his career building sales and international channels at Microsoft; he was universally respected. But he'd be the first to tell you that job was really just preparation for becoming a community leader, a catalyst, and an agent for positive social change in the fullest sense. He was the real deal. I had last spoken to Bill, my good friend and role model, just a few days before he and his 18-year-old son, Max, took off to visit colleges. He was one of the first people I interviewed for this book when I was trying to digest and distill, at a pretty casual pace at first, what I had been learning through the past 17 years of my work.
I had been planning to take the lessons of people like Bill, inspiring nonprofit leaders, social innovators, philanthropists, and committed citizens, and share those stories in a way in which millions more could see themselves and find that deeper commitment to their community. It is no exaggeration to say that this tragedy steeled my resolve and commitment. I'd been mulling this over, thinking about writing a book, but my sense of urgency was given a jolt, albeit for the worst possible reason.
