What can I do to change the world? The common reaction to that question is to feel that it’s futile, that the world is just too big and complex to affect change. But what about the people who are making a difference every day? We regularly hear about everyday heroes who are making significant impact on daunting social issues. How do they do it?
Paul Shoemaker, Founding President of Social Venture Partners International—a network of thousands of leaders supporting social change in nearly 40 cities and 8 countries around the world—has spent the last 17 years connecting people and organizations that are on the same journeys to change the world.
In CAN’T NOT DO: The Compelling Social Drive That Changes Our World, Shoemaker shares the lessons he’s learned during his career bringing together the people who found their own “can’t not do” and are contributing to a better world. CAN’T NOT DO provides the tools and answers to convert positive intention into positive action, not only with compelling narratives of people who have done it, but by distilling the core lessons learned by successful social change leaders to become more effective. Through foundational questions, personal evaluations, and concrete instruction, Shoemaker shares the necessary wisdom to achieve real progress.
Shoemaker argues that we don’t have to be famous or wealthy to make a deep difference. We have the solutions, technology, and resources necessary to fight many of the world’s largest social problems. The most vital missing link needed is more people – committed people—who can marshal resources with passion to make change happen. “Because of the world we live in, full of social multipliers, one person can have such positive impact,” he says.
Shoemaker tells dozens of inspiring stories of change makers who were determined to follow a passion, their “can’t not do,” and lead for change. Some do this full time, others, just a few hours a week:
- After an eye-opening trip to Ecuador, David Risher found a padlocked building in an orphanage. “That’s our library,” explained the orphanage leader. David’s children carried e-readers during their trip, and he was struck by the orphans who had the same drive to learn as his own kids, but without the basic tools needed to read. He found his “can’t not do” and founded Worldreader, an organization that uses technology to bring reading materials to areas where they’re most needed. Worldreader is helping fight illiteracy by helping half a million schoolchildren in 50 developing countries start reading.
- After attending a conference on eradicating fistula, a painful condition developed during childbirth that affects 2 million mothers around the developing world, Heidi Breeze thought this was a terrible injustice that needed to “go away.” Ironically, Heidi, who was one month pregnant when she attended that conference, went through a harrowing childbirth experience herself. Without emergency intervention, she would have likely suffered the same fate as the women she was now determined to help. Heidi became inspired to found One by One. She helped raise over $3.5 million for fistula treatment, prevention, reintegration and education. Those funds educated 300,000 rural people, screened over 4,500 women for fistula, and have helped repair over 2,000 women.
- Kerry McClenahan is a working mother who founded and owns a communications consulting business in Portland, Oregon. She doesn’t have a lot of extra time. At a meeting in 2010 she learned for the first time that over one third of the five year olds in the Portland area enter kindergarten academically behind their peers by two years. She felt his was a huge injustice, when the odds are stacked against these children so early. She found her can’t not do at that meeting. She had never felt that kind of passion for any topic or outside interest in her life. She reprioritized a few things to make room for something she found more important and rewarding. Since then, she has consistently spent a few hours a week helping Portland’s Ready for Kindergarten Initiative, leveraging her marketing and communications skills to help improve their community outreach and messaging.
These are just three of the many agents of change who Shoemaker profiles in Can’t Not Do. In telling their stories, Shoemaker wants readers to push past their wall of doubt and act on their own inner urges to make a difference.
To get started, Shoemaker proposes that we answer seven questions that get to the heart of why certain people reach their greatest potential for social change. These questions are explored in detail throughout the book:
- Are you a determined optimist? Determined optimists are people who believe a solution to a given social problem is possible. They are realistic, focused, flexible and adaptive, and have a resilient attitude. Tip: you only need one can’t not do at a time. Focus and go deep.
- Who are you at your core? Look in your roots. Look through your life at the experiences that had the most effect on who you are today. What sends that “chill up your spine?” Talk to others and ask them what defines you. Take notes, ask for feedback and find the patterns that will lead to what you feel optimistic about.
- Are you willing to go to hard places? Shoemaker feels this is the most important of the seven questions. People have fears and insecurities about this type of work, and that’s OK. Social change is hard and takes you out of your comfort zone.
- Are you ready to be humble and humbled? Authentically humble people have a sort of ego-less quality, a willingness to be vulnerable, to ask for help, to say “I don’t know.” This work is not for the faint-hearted nor for the big egos that can’t accept more than one dose of humility. If you don’t get humbled more than once, you’re probably still on the sidelines, not yet in the real game of hard, good social change.
- Can you actively listen? Being a great listener is one of the most powerful assets a person can possess. It is a skill that can be learned. Every time you listen deeply, you do more to create another leader for the cause. You help others see their personal power and engender trust.
- Do you believe 1+1=3? Globalization, connectedness and technology have accelerated the impact one person can have more than ever before. The biggest challenge is not know-how, not even money. It’s connecting the right people with the right ideas in the right way. During 17 years at SVP, Shoemaker and his team engaged over 4,000 partners and worked with over 300 nonprofits. Connecting creates more potential, more possibilities, more relationships.
- What is your can’t not do? This is the fundamental question. Some of the people profiled in the book shifted their whole careers, others found a few hours a week for an extended period of time, and everything in between. Helping create change is not for “extraordinary” people. We can all make a significant impact if we’re optimistic and committed. What lessons can be taken away from each of the people in Can’t Not Do that can be adapted and applied to our own lives?
Paul Shoemaker wrote Can’t Not Do to get our attention, to provide inspiration and motivation and provide pathways for action. To do, not just think; to act, not just plan.
Additional Information
A Conversation with Paul Shoemaker
Q. Paul, you write that the world does not lack solutions for tackling social issues, but what is most needed is more human and social capital. What do you mean by that?
A. I think a lot of people think solving our most entrenched social problems is sort of a black hole. We don’t really know how to create great schools or reduce violent crime. But the real truth is there are solutions to almost every challenge. From my 17 years as a social change maker, I know that we have the knowledge about how to solve most social problems (and often have the money too), what we lack most is sustained, committed, persistent human capital; can’t not do people, that put those solutions into action. It’s not easy; if it was, we would have a lot more problems solved by now.
Q. The world is full of worthy causes. It can be overwhelming – even for the most committed people who want and are willing to get involved. How do you overcome that feeling of powerlessness and become motivated?
A. One person can have such a positive impact because of the world we live in today, full of social multipliers and technology that amplify the impact one person can have. So in reality, that person isn’t alone. There are others who can be brought together in a shared cause. It’s also about knowing that there are real solutions already out there and usually enough money; the missing element is the passionate commitment of people —that’s us -- and we don’t have to be a celebrity or crazy rich to make a deep difference. There are lots of examples of people who are neither wealthy nor doing this work full-time. What matters is doing something you care about deeply in your core and that you know can be changed for the better and you are not going to stop until you do it. Every one of us has that urge somewhere within us waiting to be “unleashed.” I ask readers to answer seven questions, as a pathway to help us conquer our fears and powerlessness, and motivate us to find our purpose.
Q. People can be passionate about many things. How do we begin to find our Can’t Not Do? Should it be just one thing?
A. If everyone focused on one cause, they would create a far deeper impact. Too many well-intentioned people jump around from cause to cause and while that may be easier, it doesn’t create much lasting change for the world (or for themselves).
Q. You tell many inspiring stories in the book of individuals who found their Can’t Not Do and turned a passion into action. Are there specific character traits these change leaders share?
A. They have a mindset of determined optimism – you have to believe a problem is solvable and you have to be almost obsessed with making progress; 2) I think most people that have the most impact have found something that really connects to who they are at their core; they are very grounded; 3) they are willing to go through a lot of hard barriers and un-sexy work to make things happen. They’ve got real grit; 4) they are often, or they become, great listeners; and 5) they are humble, genuinely and authentically, humble.
Q. Social media and technology are playing a key role in mobilizing and connecting people to various causes worldwide. How can we use these tools to more effectively tap into the causes we care about?
A. Technology is one of the 3 key social multipliers. These multipliers have changed the “soil” we all do this work in. The potential for change is accelerated and enhanced because technology (and the other two multipliers: connectedness and globalization) amplify the impact of what each person can do on their own. And when that person also learns to be a great “connector,” the network effect really kicks in and they can now have impact-squared. Technology is a vital enabler, not just for commerce in today’s world, but for enabling an accelerated pace of social change and more effective change makers.
Q. 1+1 = 3? How so?
A. It’s not the first time you’ve heard about the network effect, but this is about applying that concept to the world of social change. The point of the chapter on being a connector is that you can learn how to do it, you can get much better at it. It’s not just something you are born with (or not). You can learn to be a good, maybe, great connector and when you do, your work becomes much greater than the sum of the parts.
Q. Where did the expression, now the title of your book, Can’t Not Do, come from? What does it mean?
A. The phrase kept coming up whenever I asked people how they felt about creating a particular change in the world. It conveys the sense of deeper longing and commitment that some people feel when they have found that something that goes beyond what they can do, or what they should do, and instead becomes something they simply “can’t not do.” It speaks to a stickiness and fortitude that is unique, but attainable. In my 17 years at Social Ventures Partners I’ve seen this again and again. Remarkable people and organizations that share a passion and a commitment to create a better world.
Q. How did you find your own Can’t Not Do? What are the causes you’re most passionate about?
A. What I’ve come to learn over the last 17 years is that my “can’t not do” is enabling and empowering other people to see that they can, in fact, have a much greater positive impact on the world than they might currently think. I have watched and worked alongside hundreds of these people all over the world and I’ve learned what makes them tick, how they reach their greatest potential. I want every person to discover their own unique potential for social change, and then to commit to it with passion. I want everyone to find and act on their Can’t Not Do.
Paul Shoemaker is the Founding President of Social Venture Partners International. With insights from 17 years of this unique vantage point, he is the Northwest’s leading expert on activating social change agents and a global thought leader on how individuals can be the most effective social change leaders. In 2011 and 2012, Shoemaker was named one of the “Top 50 Most Influential People in the Nonprofit Sector” by The NonProfit Times, and in 2013, was named “Philanthropist of the Year” by Future in Review. Shoemaker has spoken at TEDx and United Nations events and has written for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fortune, and The Huffington Post. More information may be found at www.paulshoemaker.org