2024 NAGDCA Leadership Award Recipients
Congratulations to the 2024NAGDCA Leadership Recognition Award recipients! The awards recognize the brightest ideas and most innovative solutions from across the public sector defined contribution industry. Projects and campaigns from NAGDCA government members were eligible for nomination in five categories: Holistic Financial Wellness, National Retirement Security Month, Participant Education & Communication, Plan Design & Administration, Technology & Cybersecurity. Nominations were reviewed by the 2024 Awards Committee, and judged on originality and measurable results.
We encourage you to click below to learn more about the innovative, award-winning projects and campaigns!
Holistic Financial Wellness
The City and County of Honolulu Deferred Compensation Plan is a 457(b) plan established July 1, 1979, and is available to eligible employees of the City and County of Honolulu. The Deferred Compensation Committee, which consists of seven committee members, manages the plan which has assets exceeding $1 billion and serves more than 9,900 participants.
The City and County of Honolulu continually strives to provide valuable, comprehensive, and affordable benefit programs for their employees. Each year, the Deferred Compensation Committee regularly reviews the City’s Deferred Compensation Plan to ensure the services provided are of high quality and serve the needs of their employees. Those services include providing financial wellness education to participants and prospective participants.
Like many employers, the City and County of Honolulu recognizes that financial and physical wellness are both necessary for a happy and fulfilling retirement. On October 24, 2023, the City and County of Honolulu hosted their first ever Deferred Compensation Plan Health & Wealth Fair, which was a significant opportunity to engage their participants in activities to assess and improve their financial and physical well-being. The overall theme: Helping You on Your Path to Health and Financial Wellness.
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Since 2016, the City of Milwaukee has had automatic enrollment for new hires and an annual re-enrollment program where employees must opt out each year if they do not want to participate. This has led to overall participation rates in the high 80s ever since. There is a segment of our population that is not subject to automatic enrollment or the annual re-enrollment program and that is our unionized active fire and police. We wanted to explore if these groups were taking advantage of the Deferred Compensation Plan at different levels than regular City employees and if additional outreach was needed. We began by researching participation and contribution rates for each Fire Department class going back to 2017 and noticed that there was a downtrend in both participation and contribution rates that began in 2019 and lasted through 2021. A special outreach program was launched with the assistance of an engaged Board member where each new Fire Department sworn classes and Fire Cadet classes would receive their own seminars in additional to their new employee origination.
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Over the last few years, the economic landscape has been rocky for many Americans. Because participants’ financial situation can have a significant impact on their mental health and stress levels, Savings Plus recognizes that retirement planning can’t exist in a vacuum. Ahead of the 2023 benefit election period, we hosted a virtual benefit fair to provide participants with timely education and guidance on a wide breadth of financial and retirement topics.
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National Retirement Security Month
City of Los Angeles - Deferred Compensation Plan City Fair - National Retirement Security Month 2023
On October 1, 2023, DCP staff and its Third-Party Administrator (TPA), Voya, launched their annual campaign for National Retirement Security Month (NRSM). The campaign’s key goals were to drive participation in the DCP, encourage higher participant contribution rates, support asset retention within its retired participant population, promote greater awareness of the personalized services and features offered by the DCP, and amplify the importance of broader financial wellbeing. In keeping with the tradition of offering a unique NRSM experience, the City selected the campaign theme of the “DCP City Fair,” inviting City employees to “step right up” to a virtual fairground full of fun, games, and retirement education.
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In 2023, State of New York employees were still feeling pressure from the previous years’ economic conditions. High inflation in 2022 placed increased strain on their finances and ability to save for retirement. As a result, many plan participants decreased or stopped contributions. In observance of NRSM, the New York State Deferred Compensation Plan’s (NYSDCP) sought to help participants rebuild confidence in their finances and get back on track to meet their retirement goals. To do so, we created education and action-oriented resources for participants, messaging for key participant audiences, and tools that participating state employers could leverage for their employees.
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For the last several years during National Retirement Security Month (NRSM), the MO Deferred Comp Plan has created fun, informative campaigns to educate participants on saving for retirement and all the features the plan has to offer. In 2023, the plan switched gears and devoted the entire month to retirement security. The “Retirement Security. It Starts With You.” campaign educated state employees on ways to keep their retirement savings safe from cyber criminals. The topics included cybersecurity best practices, setting up your account credentials, enabling multifactor authentication (MFA), working with financial professionals, identifying scams, and saving enough to be financially secure in retirement. The campaign utilized videos, social media, email, a podcast, a central website landing page, and in-person communication.
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Participant Education & Communication
To be more innovative and attractive to participants, MissionSquare used the theme of music through the decades and “Getting in Tune With Retirement” as the concept for the communications strategy. This was a Q4 campaign set to run right after the conclusion of National Retirement Security Month (October 2023) to keep the momentum going for Anaheim participants’ engagement in their retirement. The communications strategy set the length of the campaign from November 1 to December 31 (two months). The target audience was Anaheim participants who were close to retirement: those aged 40+ with an account asset balance of $40K and above. We especially want ed to highlight the MissionSquare financial resources for those approaching retirement and the access they have to their personal CFP® or retirement representative. The City aimed to integrate its wellness platform’s point system, called Vitality Points, to enhance incentives for participants. Vitality Points are an internal rewards program for City of Anaheim employees who engage in activities that promote their financial health. After the completion of the campaign, MissionSquare reported those who accumulated the most Vitality Points to the client for the participants to win prizes.
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In collaboration with the MissionSquare Retirement client and plan sponsor, District of Columbia (DCHR), MissionSquare Marketing was tasked with creating a marketing plan to help enhance the FWC DC employee experience. Working with creative partners, MissionSquare Marketing proposed a Financial Wellness Center Challenge for DC employees. The business need was for an interactive and multi-faceted communications campaign focused on the MissionSquare Financial Wellness Center and its array of benefits and resources to incentivize DC employees to engage in the FWC. This would ultimately drive them to their online accounts, review their investments and account information, enroll in the plan, talk to a retirement representative or CFP ®, increase their plan contributions, prevent rollouts and encourage consolidation of outside accounts, and discover the MissionSquare personalized financial wellness services and products.
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Since the onset of the pandemic, Ohio DC noticed a decline in group meeting attendance. With decentralized work locations, fewer employees participated in workplace meetings, impacting Ohio DC’s field representatives across the state. To continue delivering valuable education to Ohio’s public employees, Ohio DC sought innovative solutions. Although webinars had been offered for more than a decade, Ohio DC was able to increase year-over-year attendance by 154% by providing new engaging content and thoughtful tactics. The enhanced content led to a 98% surge in meeting participation during the second half of 2023.
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Inflation and cost of living hit State of California residents hard in 2022. California Savings Plus noticed a significant influx of participants decreasing or stopping contributions to their plans. To help participants get back on track to meet their retirement goals, we took a multifaceted approach, including timely education and actionable guidance and resources, targeted messaging based on life stage and financial situation, and virtual and in-person outreach. These efforts resulted in improved participant retirement readiness and deepened participant trust in Savings Plus as a source of support and reliable information.
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In 2023, Hoosier START conducted a review of plan metrics and discovered many participants lacked a designated beneficiary. To address this, a campaign was launched to raise awareness about beneficiary designation, educate participants, and guide them on how to update their beneficiary information routinely. The campaign aimed to connect with as many participants as possible –regardless of how long they had been participating within the Plan or employment status — to emphasize the benefits of proper beneficiary designation. Additionally, it shared relatable, real-life scenarios to prompt a call to action by participants to review and verify their designations. By doing so, Hoosier START sought to ensure smoother transitions and financial security for beneficiaries.
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Plan Design & Administration
The State of Maryland reinstated and funded the Match bill for State employees currently contributing to their supplemental retirement plans. Thrilled with the approval, we established a Match program, created, and executed a robust communication plan within an eight-week window of opportunity from when the bill was approved to when it was effective. Our clever and highly effective ‘Catch the Match’ campaigns and education outreach resulted in remarkable increases in enrollments, contributions, and rollovers. We are proud we helped improved the financial futures of thousands of our current, new, and future MSRP members.
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The SUNY Campus Dashboard is an innovative tool designed to enhance retirement outcomes across SUNY’s diverse network of campuses. Developed by CAPTRUST, this dashboard aggregates and analyzes data from multiple recordkeepers to provide a clear, actionable view of retirement plan performance, focusing on participant demographics, asset trends, and enrollment metrics. By identifying disparities and tracking progress, the dashboard enables targeted interventions to boost enrollment and engagement, particularly among underrepresented groups. This strategic tool not only supports informed decision-making but also fosters a culture of proactive retirement planning across SUNY’s campuses, ensuring all employees have the resources necessary for a secure retirement.
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Washington State Department of Retirement Systems (DRS) administers one of the most complex public retirement systems in the country, comprising of fifteen plans across eight individual retirement systems. DRS’ deferred compensation plan (DCP) is a voluntary 457(b) program with approximately $6.6B in assets. In March 2022, Washington State legislation required that DCP add Roth as a contribution option no later than December 1, 2023. On October 1, 2023, DCP customers were given the option to begin using Roth, including Roth conversions. Implementation included communicating clearly with employers and customers about the differences between pretax and Roth. Communications were focused on key messages with consistent language and themes with a thoughtfully crafted timeline. The theme was nature-oriented and designed to integrate components of the natural world specific to the State of Washington, including bears, eagles and salmon. A Roth video, multifaceted email campaign, virtual Q&A sessions geared towards various age groups, podcast and social media posts all resulted in the success of reaching the Roth adoption goal for the first year within 6 months.
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Technology & Cybersecurity
The City of Portland made the decision to enhance the employee and participant experience by adopting online capabilities and functionality to increase employee participation and engagement in the Plan, improve the employee experience from enrollment to retirement, increase efficiency and data security/integrity and reduce administrative challenges and burdens for the City. The City enabled online enrollment, online contribution rate change service and online beneficiary maintenance through a participant’s account via the dedicated Plan website. This shift in process required a comprehensive multi-touch communication campaign to inform and educate participants on the new services and processes, focusing on how these changes will help make managing Plan accounts simpler.
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The Nevada Deferred Compensation (NDC) Program, as part of the State of Nevada Department of Administration, is committed to help create a personal financial wellness plan for all State employees and their families. An important component of holistic financial wellness is the protection of one’s assets, income, identity, and estate. As such, the Program recognized the importance of safeguarding NDC accounts and participant information against the ongoing risk of fraud, cyber threats, and other unauthorized activity. In partnership its recordkeeper and investment consultant, the NDC Program implemented a cybersecurity policy statement and deployed a series of cybersecurity awareness campaigns to help all participants keep their accounts secure from constantly evolving and changing threats.
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This project focused on the safety & security of our participants accounts in the NYC Health + Hospitals TDA Program: 403(b) Plan. Our campaign consistently reminded individuals of the importance of registering their account online. We implemented a muti-media approach, including emails, digital screens at the various hospitals, giveaways, and seminars. Our results speak for themselves: In less than six months, close to 50% of our participants have taken action to register their accounts.
