CNVOS was established in 2001 by 27 non-governmental organisations. In recent years, more than 150 organisation have joined annually, resulting in a total of 1500 groups of associations, individual associations, institutes and foundations brought together as our members, and further 10.000 non-governmental organisations as our indirect members. Based on our collaboration with the government, national assembly, economy, media, and, most significantly, – our members – we have acquired sufficient breadth and knowledge to fulfil and realise our mission.

• the national NGO information centre

providing the Slovenian non-governmental sector with a complete information service regarding the current sector activity as well as all calls for tender at international, European, national and regional levels;

• the national NGO advocacy centre

based on regular analyses of the legislation and policies regulating the development of NGOs, we draw up amending proposals and lobby our government and the national assembly to have them adopted – we succeed in amending around 30 regulations and policies annually;

• the national NGO training centre

we organise more than 50 training courses annually, covering fields of management and administration, communication, advocacy;

• the national advisory centre

we provide counselling to more than 1000 organisations annually, covering fields of non-governmental law as well as management and administration;

• the national project centre

for non-governmental organisations, we develop project ideas, search for partners, prepare project applications to be submitted to European and national calls for tender, and perform monitoring and evaluation of projects;

• a persistent promoter of transparent and high-quality NGO operation

we develop quality models and integrity plans for NGOs, provide counselling, implement assessments.

We cooperate regularly with our sister organisations from other European countries, getting involved jointly into drawing up of policies at the EU level. We are also very active in Western Balkan countries, collaborating with NGOs and governments to develop NGO support environments.

We are members of:

• European Civic Forum (ECF)
• Balkan Civil Society Development Network (BCSDN).

In 2018, our knowledge and experiences convinced Iceland, Liechtenstein in Norway, which, as donor countries, entrusted us with the management of the Active Citizens Fund together with Zavod PIP and Društvo za razvijanje prostovoljnega dela Novo mesto. In the period 2014–2021, the Active Citizens Fund Programme pays special attention to long-term strengthening of the non-governmental sector and empowerment of vulnerable groups. The ACF Slovenia’s 3 millions of euros are to be for NGOs’ projects and their capacity building.

We are also a consortium partner in Active Citizens Fund in Croatia, together with the Croatian non-governmental organizations Zaklada Slagalica, Solidarna and Udruga SMART.

We cooperated with donor countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway in similar roles already in the period 2009–2014. At that time, we partnered with a local organisation Regionalni center za okolje in the management of the NGO Programme of the Norwegian grant and EEA Grants for Slovenia. 1,593,750 euros were allocated to the NGO Project Fund, and 120 projects were financed.