The 5 most important foreign donors for CSOs in Bulgaria are: the European Union horizontal programmes, Trust for Civil society in Central and Eastern Europe, Balkan Trust for Democracy, America for Bulgaria Foundation and the NGO Fund of the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area (funded by Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein).
The EU Operational Programme Administrative capacity provided roughly thirty-seven million BGN (around 18.5 million euro) for NGO projects; however, there are issues of mismanagement, conflict of interest and problematic administration involved in allocation of the funds.
There is no specific data of the proportion of EU funding for CSOs to other foreign donors and overall CSO funding, but it is estimated that the EU funding is becoming the main source of funding; however it does not provide the necessary sustainability as the operational programmes are managed by the state administration which creates preconditions for mismanagement.