CHANGING HANDS BOOKSTORE/Spirit of Enterprise Award
www.changinghands.com 
Changing Hands Bookstore is as much a community gathering place as it is a bookstore.
The idea began 31 years ago as a fantasy on the porch steps of an alternative school. Three school volunteers – Tom Brodersen, Gayle Shanks and Bob Sommer – shared a passion of creating a bookstore that would connect people and ideas.
On April Fool's Day 1974, Changing Hands opened with a little borrowed money and a big passion for community service. In 1998, the company expanded from its original small Mill Avenue location in downtown Tempe to a 13,667 square-foot site in a Tempe shopping center. The original location closed in 2000.
As an independent bookseller, Changing Hands Bookstore competes with 22 national book chain outlets in the Valley and many well-known Internet sites.
Its core values are embodied in its vision/mission:
"We have a passion for the written word and believe that books can change lives. We take pleasure in… providing quality books, gifts and services to enrich the lives of people in our community...We support our community through promotion of education and the arts and through charitable contributions to other organizations and institutions that support our local community and human rights throughout the world."
That's quite a leap from the founders' idea that led to the company's name. Originally, they envisioned that they would carry only used books that would change hands many times.
Changing Hands employs 40 empowered booklovers, who commit to written guiding principles and clear expectations about aspirations to be the Nordstrom of booksellers.
Changing Hands also prides itself on the ardent loyalty and fervor it inspires in customers. The store is a perennial readers' choice favorite, in publications such as Phoenix Magazine, Mountain Living Magazine and Phoenix New Times.
Booklovers flock there for writing workshops, children's events, book groups and seminars. Established authors make sure it is on their book tour itineraries. The big names are showcased along with emerging local authors and poets.
At noon on New Year's Day, more than 1,000 customers gather at Changing Hands for the Customer Appreciation Day Sale. Not only a 25% discount draws people. So does the festive atmosphere, with treats from a nearby restaurant and Wildflower Bread Company. Customers, celebrating the new year and the joy of reading, socialize in checkout lines that can be an hour long.
The business is an industry leader. Changing Hands is active in Arizona Chain Reaction, whose goal is to educate consumers "to think independently and buy locally." The bookstore has been recognized nationally as one of the best independents, receiving the Charles S. Haslam Award for excellence in bookselling.
In 2003, Events Coordinator Cindy Dach created "First Fiction," a national partnership among independent bookstores, publishers and local restaurants across the country to create literary events that build larger audiences for first-time authors. Each Fall and Spring, a group of first-time authors travel together to independent bookstores, reading and signing their books.
"Books are our catalyst for bringing people together," says Gayle, who is now president of the company. "We want to bring people together – the odd, the quirky, the staid – and have them find common ground in ideas."
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