CUNA said on Thursday that its Project Zip Code, a secure program that matches credit union members by legislative district and county based on their ZIP code, has achieved a milestone just ahead of the November election by identifying 80 million credit union members in congressional districts across the country.
"This is a great milestone as it means we have matched 84% of credit unions members to their current and new legislative districts," said Kristen Prather, grassroots manager and day-to-day Project Zip Code manager.
The latest version of PZC software, which was unveiled late last year, matches credit union membership data to the current 112th U.S. congressional districts and state legislative districts. New legislative districts for the 113th Congress and state legislative districts are also matched by this latest version of the software. PZC software and the data gleaned from it can give credit union supporters a great advantage when advocating for credit unions and their members, CUNA said.
CUNA, the state leagues and credit unions are in the midst of a major push on credit union issues, meeting with legislative staff in Wash., D.C. and federal lawmakers as they campaign in their home districts.
PZC data enables CUNA, the leagues and credit unions to show elected officials how many credit union members are among their constituents, Prather said.
"The more credit unions that participate in Project Zip Code, the more accurate these membership counts will be," she said. The data will also come in handy once the elections have concluded, as credit unions follow up with advocacy efforts with newly elected officials.
CUNA said credit unions can also use PZC to better track their membership and to plan future ATM and branching expansion.
PZC protects the privacy of credit union members because only membership totals per legislative district and county – not information on individual members – are transmitted from credit unions to the PZC database, according to CUNA.
Go to CUNA.org for more information about Project Zip Code.
