ABOUT COOLE INSIGHT
THE STORY AND THE VISION
Find out all about Coole Insight from our Founder and Director, Steve.
Coole Insight Ltd is the home of students’ union development, driving sector improvement through collaboration, expertise, and insight. We work hard in our pursuit of getting the right thing done by people, and by organisations. We embody the transformational power of the student movement, and share our lived and work experience of this power to maximise the potential of elected student leaders, professional staff teams, and students’ unions as organisations.
Our products and services are tailored to the needs of each individual client by recognising difference, specific needs, and changing circumstances. Whether you are a students’ union with one elected officer or several, we can help. Whether you have a staff team of one or one hundred, we can help. Whether you are a multi-million-pound autonomous organisation or a small department within a university, we can help.
The Student Officer Support Programme (SOSP) is our flagship offering. Starting in July, we meet monthly through to the following June with over hundred student officers across the UK and Ireland to check in on their officer experience in terms of their mental health and wellbeing, day to day performance in the role, and their future employment prospects beyond students’ unions. We also track and monitor each individual officer’s journey through a monthly data collection process, that is shared with participating students’ unions on the programme, and other organisations for sector improvement purposes. Each officer also has access to a 360-degree appraisal process and report that provides feedback on their year in office from their SU colleagues and senior university stakeholders.
Our organisation has grown significantly in the last five years. We have gone from a small team of consultants focusing on solely officer support, to an organisation who provides extensive support across a wide variety of issues and areas that concern organisations on a day-to-day basis. From student officer support, to providing interim staffing options, through to extensive organisational reviews, we have supported over 50 different organisations and provided tailored, bespoke support to all of them. We are continuing to grow our services and are always open to new ways of working with organisations for their specific needs.
Vision statements should always be ever so slightly out of reach, and we work towards this vision by always going above and beyond, by putting the interests of those we work with ahead of profit, and by having a work ethic that is second to none.
For the past five years or so we have been on a mission to help make the student movement the best it can be by focusing on the development of student leaders and organisations to have a positive impact on their universities, society, and the wide world. Students getting involved with their students’ unions can be transformative. I know this to be true because it happened to me, but it would not have happened if it was not for the incredibly generous, supportive, and brilliant minds that I met along the way. Our operating model is based on bringing together these brilliant minds to collaborate, innovate, and provide tremendous value and capacity to a sector that has such a special place in our hearts.
In terms of our purpose, we exist to empower and improve people and organisations to effectively influence change, and shape society for the better. We do this through insight, research, learning, and collaboration with expert partners and associates and together we developed the following values which flow through everything we do:
I founded the business back in December 2018 and it has been an incredible journey so far. Building a business was never in my plans, but life seemed to have its own plan for me as I tried to survive, (in every sense of the word) and navigate my way out of the darkest, most challenging and testing chapter of my life. Coole Insight was born out of adversity, and rediscovering my purpose of being the best possible father I can be was the catalyst. Everything you read in this document will appear to be a list of transactional products and services, but to me it is so much more than trying to simply sell our services. It is firstly about my three children, my boys, my world – Corey, Kieran, and Cody, and an attempt to inspire them when they are older and remind them whatever life has in store for them, they can never give up like I so nearly did.
Secondly, it’s about trying to attract people who believe what the team and I believe about the world, and want to be a part of what we are trying to build, and the impact we are trying to create.
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Best wishes,
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