VICTO National was founded in 1970 by Canadian missionaries called the Scarborough Fathers who started a parish program in Southern Leyte called "Saving Souls the Credit Union Way". Its core service is education and training. It offers the widest variety of courses in the country, ranging from mandatory seminars required by the Co operative Development Authority (CDA) to technical, motivational and specialized trainings including, but not limited to, Technical Trainings, Motivational Seminars, and Specialized Sessions. It has spun off its financing arm called Philippine CoopCentral Fund Federation (PCF). It has also spun off its auditing arm to comply with international standards and regulations. It has a strong consultancy program (from bookkeeping assistance to project development/evaluation and others) availed by clients from government, academe, NGOs and coops. It currently maintains offices in Mindanao, Luzon and the 3 regions of the Visayas plus seminar hauses in Cebu, Tacloban and Iloilo. It has close to 300 coop affiliates with an aggregate asset of at least 40 billion pesos coming from at least a million households. The Center takes pride in its active advocacy programs. It was the first co-op in the country to have a gendeer program (in 1988) that has since produced specialized gender sensitivity trainings for women, men, youth, older persons and LGBT, plus projects on maternal and child health. It also advocates for older persons, kids (separate from), youth, good governance and environment. Its disaster program brought international medical missions within days after Yolanda hit Tacloban, Cebu and Iloilo—another initiative of the global DE network. It was the first country awardee of the Development Management Award presented by Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and World's Executive Digest. It was also selected as one of the institutions that embodied the principle of 'People Power People' by the Benigno S. Aquino Foundation

It was tapped by the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) to organize the first ever co-operatives in Afghanistan. At the peak of this 5-year project, VICTO National had 14 consultants assigned in 3 regions of that war-torn country. In 2014, it became the 240th member of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA). But its greatest achievements are the accomplishments of its coop members and leaders which continually garner various awards. These range from Land Bank's Gawad Pitak awards to international awards from Freedom from Hunger, Citi Foundation and even ICA. Two of its affiliates are now ISO-certified and more are on the way.