CUNA’s Ease the Burden grassroots campaign reached more than 600,000 credit union members and resulted in more than 25,000 messages sent to Capitol Hill since its launch in late April. The campaign is the latest phase of CUNA’s Member Activation Program, designed to educate and activate America’s 105 million credit union members.

“Easing the regulatory burden on credit unions is not only a legislative issue, but a campaign issue as well, one that will hopefully get traction in a new administration,” said Richard Gose, CUNA’s chief political officer. “We feel good about the response we’ve gotten with Ease the Burden, and we look forward to our Middle Class 2016 campaign playing a big role in the campaign going forward.

According to Gose, 9 out of every 10 visitors to www.EasetheBurden.com took some form of action. Visitors could use the site to contact their elected officials, as well as see the results of CUNA’s regulatory burden study, including state-by-state data.

CUNA’s study, conducted with Cornerstone Advisors, found that regulatory burden cost credit unions $7.2 billion in 2014. This includes $6.1 billion in regulatory costs and $1.1 billion in lost revenue.

The study has been used by state leagues and credit unions to show elected officials the true cost of regulatory burden to credit union members. CUNA has provided a state-by-state, per credit union and per credit union member cost breakdown, which credit unions used to show legislators about the direct effect on their constituents.

After Labor Day, CUNA will transition to its “Strong Credit Unions. Strong Middle Class.” grassroots campaign, which focuses on informing the 2016 presidential candidates about the importance of credit unions in providing affordable financial services to the middle class.