Introducing Milo

If you're up on your ancient history then you'll know that Milo was a sixth-century BC wrestler renowned for his feats of strength and power. You may not know, however, that Milo is also the platform that underpins some of the important work we do behind the scenes to help organise and understand the third sector in Scotland. At its heart, Milo is an online database, knowledge management and reporting platform. We provide access over the web, free at the point of delivery, and Scotland's 32 Third Sector Interfaces (TSIs) use it to input and analyse intelligence about their local third sector. A strategy and management board - with representation from SCVO, Voluntary Action Scotland, Volunteer Scotland and Scottish Government - thinks about the big picture for the platform, and a user group meets regularly to swap notes on how things are working day-to-day. As well as providing some core digital infrastructure for the TSI network, data from Milo also populates the information about local volunteering opportunities presented on the Volunteer Scotland website and about third sector organisations presented on Get Involved. Opening up data so that more people can benefit from it is an important priority for the Scottish Government. It's also something that I'm keen to find new ways to support in the third sector. If you've got ideas about where we might go next then Gavin and I would love to hear them.