WASHINGTON — Last year proved to be a record setting one forcontributions to the Credit Union Legislative Action Council,CUNA's political action committee. According to Richard Gose,CUNA's senior vice president for political affairs, CULAC broughtin more than $2 million.

Gose attributed the solid increase to a shift in attitudes aboutthe necessity of contributing to credit union causes among creditunion members and a growing number of different tools to makecontributing easier to do.

Speaking to reporters about CULAC's performance, Goseparticularly noted that the increased contributions came in anon-election year, when fundraising efforts in the past havegenerally yielded lower results. CULAC's previous record overallcame last year, $1.98 million. CULAC's previous record fornon-election year came in 2005 with $1.77 million. CULAC is no ontrack to beat the 2005 — 2006 election cycle total of $3.75million.

CULAC also reported having $700,000 on hand as of January 1,2008, which Gose said was especially good since this year politicalspending in general will be elevated on account of the electioncycle.

“Having that much money on hand helps us by allowing us greaterflexibility in what we support,” Gose said, adding that there willbe direct spending on candidate's campaigns but also possiblespending on independent spending of different types of candidatesupport like direct mail or other sorts of advertising.

Gose said the shift in attitude toward credit union giving hadturned up among credit union members who, he said, appeared to betaking more responsibility for supporting their credit unions. Healso said the growth in payroll deductions to fund the politicaland legislative efforts has helped to boost donations and to evenout the money flow.

“Of course there can never be complete predictability inpolitical fundraising,” he said, “but payroll deductions can helpus have a better sense of what the donations are likely to be.”

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