Art Caple President’s Award acknowledges the City of Seattle and its industry partner Nationwide; Members’ Choice Award given to the County of Los Angeles and its industry partner Empower

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Lexington, KY, October 26, 2023—The National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators today announced the City of Seattle and its industry partner Nationwide winner of the 2023 Art Caple President’s Award for Excellence. The County of Los Angeles and its industry partner Empower is the recipient of the 2023 Members’ Choice Award. NAGDCA is the premier professional association for plan administrators and services providers of government-sponsored defined contribution retirement plans.

The 2023 NAGDCA Art Caple President’s Award was presented to the City of Seattle and its industry partner Nationwide for its 2022 In-Language Campaign in the Participant Education & Communication category.

 Recognizing that one in five residents in Seattle speak a language other than English at home, the City defined what languages connect best with their diverse employee base and created campaigns to connect with employees in their preferred language. The City used multiple tactics from February to December 2022, each designed to enhance participants’ retirement benefit knowledge. The tactics included a virtual open house, updated and translated Plan FAQ and Highlights brochure, and the creation of an end-to-end Spanish web experience. The campaign resulted in increased web traffic and new users, and a 10% increase in enrollments year-over-year. More about the award-winning campaign may be found here.

“We’re delighted to bestow the 2023 Art Caple President’s Award for Excellence—our highest honor—on the City of Seattle in recognition of its ongoing efforts to help its participants prepare for retirement,” said NAGDCA Executive Director Matt Petersen. “We applaud the City of Seattle and its industry partner Nationwide for creating a multi-language, multi-tactic campaign to enhance participants’ retirement benefit knowledge, which garnered increased web traffic, new users, and a meaningful increase in enrollments.”

The City of Seattle was selected by a nine-member Awards Committee from among the 10 highest-scoring winners* from the five categories of the 2023 NAGDCA Leadership Recognition Awards: Holistic Financial Wellness, National Retirement Security Month, Participant Education & Communication, Plan Design & Administration, and Technology & Cybersecurity. Projects and campaigns from NAGDCA public sector plan sponsor members are eligible for submission.

The Art Caple President’s Award, NAGDCA’s top honor, was established in 2019 to commemorate the lifework of past NAGDCA president Art Caple. Mr. Caple was a visionary and voice for those who serve others through employer-sponsored retirement plans and championed retirement programs that build financial security for state and local government employees throughout their retirement. The Award is bestowed annually on a public sector retirement plan demonstrating Mr. Caple’s participant-first perspective to building financial security for public employees.

The 2023 NAGDCA Members’ Choice Award was given to the County of Los Angeles and its industry partner Empower for Road Trip to Retirement, the County’s 2022 National Retirement Security Month (NRSM) campaign, which also received a 2023 Leadership Recognition Award in the NRSM category.

More than 137,000 people participate in the County of Los Angeles’ 457(b) Horizons and 401(k) Savings Plans, each at a different stage of her/his career and retirement journey with different financial circumstances, goals, and motivations. For the 2022 edition of its NRSM campaign, the County’s Plan Administrative Committee (PAC) developed a campaign designed to map out the various landmarks of retirement readiness that each participant should visit during their career. The milestones included introductions to Comprehensive Account Reviews (one-on-one sessions discussing retirement income goals and saving/investing strategies), website navigation and planning-tool utilization, pre-retirement catch-up options, and inflation-related risk management. The campaign encouraged awareness by employing a theme that celebrated retirement planning as a “road trip to remember” using many of LA’s signature attractions. Additional information about the award-winning campaign may be accessed here.

“We extend a hearty congratulation to the County of LA for garnering the Members’ Choice Award for its creative ‘road trip’ through a number of LA’s recognized attractions as a means of encouraging awareness of the many essential milestones of retirement planning,” Matt said.

The Members’ Choice award, created in 2021, enables NAGDCA members to select the plan they feel deserves special recognition for its outstanding project or campaign. The 2023 Leadership Recognition Award winners are eligible for the award, and all NAGDCA Annual Conference attendees have the opportunity to vote for their favorite campaign or project. The plan that receives the most votes is recognized as the annual Members’ Choice Award winner and receives complimentary annual NAGDCA membership for the following year.

ABOUT NAGDCA
NAGDCA provides education, information, and training in all aspects of public plan administration to support members in creating plans that enable secure retirement outcomes for their participants. Additionally, NAGDCA is a co-founder with the Employee Benefit Research Institute of the Public Retirement Research Lab, a retirement industry-sponsored collaborative effort. The PRRL mines data from the PRRL Database, the first-ever database specific to public sector plan- and participant-level defined contribution data, to produce research aimed at enhancing understanding of the design and utilization of public sector defined contribution retirement plans. NAGDCA also conceived National Retirement Security Week to encourage retirement saving among government workers. Through its efforts, National Retirement Security Week evolved into National Retirement Security Month, a national effort to inspire American employees to save adequately for a secure retirement that is observed throughout the retirement industry during the month of October. It has received bipartisan Senate resolution since its conception in 2006. To learn more about NAGDCA, visit https://www.nagdca.org/.

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