CUNA said on Thursday that its Project Zip Code, a secureprogram that matches credit union members by legislative districtand county based on their ZIP code, has achieved a milestone justahead of the November election by identifying 80 million creditunion members in congressional districts across the country.

“This is a great milestone as it means we have matched 84% ofcredit unions members to their current and new legislativedistricts,” said Kristen Prather, grassroots manager and day-to-dayProject Zip Code manager.

The latest version of PZC software, which was unveiled late lastyear, matches credit union membership data to the current 112thU.S. congressional districts and state legislative districts. Newlegislative districts for the 113th Congress and state legislativedistricts are also matched by this latest version of the software.PZC software and the data gleaned from it can give credit unionsupporters a great advantage when advocating for credit unions andtheir members, CUNA said.

CUNA, the state leagues and credit unions are in the midst of amajor push on credit union issues, meeting with legislative staffin Wash., D.C. and federal lawmakers as they campaign in their homedistricts.

PZC data enables CUNA, the leagues and credit unions to showelected officials how many credit union members are among theirconstituents, Prather said.

“The more credit unions that participate in Project Zip Code, the more accurate these membership countswill be,” she said. The data will also come in handy once theelections have concluded, as credit unions follow up with advocacyefforts with newly elected officials.

CUNA said credit unions can also use PZC to better track theirmembership and to plan future ATM and branching expansion.

PZC protects the privacy of credit union members because onlymembership totals per legislative district and county – notinformation on individual members – are transmitted from creditunions to the PZC database, according to CUNA.

Go to CUNA.org formore information about Project Zip Code.