Press Release

NAGDCA Announces Winner of 2020 Art Caple President's Award for Excellence

Issued by NAGDCA [National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators]

Sept. 14, 2020

The City of Los Angeles, with industry partner Voya, acknowledged for its 2019 National Retirement Security Week* campaign

Lexington, KY, September 10, 2020 -- The National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators today announced the City of Los Angeles the winner of its 2020 Art Caple President’s Award for Excellence. NAGDCA is the premier professional association for plan administrators and services providers of government-sponsored defined contribution retirement plans.

Specifically, the award acknowledges the City of Los Angeles’ Deferred Compensation Plan for its 2019 National Retirement Security Week (NRSW) campaign "The Best Plans are with your Friends.”

"We’re honored to receive the Art Caple President’s Award from NAGDCA for the DCP’s 2019 NRSW campaign and grateful to NAGDCA for creating opportunities for us to share our participant engagement efforts with our peers,” said Steven Montagna, Executive Director-Deferred Compensation Plan, City of Los Angeles. “Our goal with this campaign was to provide a catalyst for employees to engage with their accounts and with their peers to enhance their retirement readiness. We’re thrilled to be recognized for achieving our objectives for this campaign, which both prompted participants to take action in their accounts and promoted discussion of the DCPs benefits.”

Steven continued, “National Retirement Security Week is a very important national campaign that inspires us to make a concerted effort to advance its goal of raising awareness about the importance of saving for retirement. We’re grateful to NAGDCA for conceiving NRSW and for all its tireless legislative work to advance retirement security for public sector employees. We also want to acknowledge Voya, our third party administrator. Voya is, in every sense, a true partner in our participant engagement efforts, from conception to implementation. We’re especially grateful for their ability to help us measure our results.”

The concept for the DCP’s 2019 NRSW campaign derived from the observation that peers and colleagues -- trusted messengers -- appear to be the most effective influencers of employee engagement with the DCP and retirement success. The campaign revolved around an interactive exercise -- “Be a Friend Challenge” -- with five suggested steps for each of the DCP’s audiences (active participants, retired participants, and non-participating eligible employees) audiences (participants to complete and re-engage with the plan for each of the DCP’s. The DCP’s 2020 NRSW campaign spurred a 50% increase in account logins and a 57% increase in enrollments compared with its 2018 campaign. Additionally, the campaign spurred a 122% increase in the DCP’s Facebook followers and a 346% increase in its Instagram followers.

Additional detail about the “The Best Plans are with your Friends” campaign may be accessed here.

"The Best Plans are with your Friends” campaign was one of 13 winners from 39 submissions for the 2020 NAGDCA Leadership Awards.

The winner of the Art Caple President’s Award is selected by a task force of NAGDCA past presidents from the four highest-scoring winners in the four categories of the annual NAGDCA Leadership Awards. NAGDCA Leadership Awards recognize excellence and innovation demonstrated by government defined contribution plans in four categories: National Retirement Security Week, Participant Education & Communication, Plan Design & Administration, Technology & Social Media. Projects and campaigns from NAGDCA public sector plan sponsor members are eligible for submission.

"We’re delighted to bestow the 2020 Art Caple President’s Award for Excellence on the City of Los Angeles in recognition of its ‘The Best Plans are with your Friends’ campaign for last year’s National Retirement Security Week,” said NAGDCA Executive Director Matt Petersen. “We applaud the City of Los Angeles Deferred Compensation Plan for its tireless efforts to create engaging campaigns that spur participation and advance understanding of the many facets to attaining a secure retirement.”

The Art Caple President’s Award 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. It is awarded annually to a public sector retirement plan demonstrating Mr. Caple’s participant-first perspective to building financial security for public employees.

National Retirement Security Week—now National Retirement Security Month—is a national effort conceived by NAGDCA to raise public awareness about the importance of saving for retirement. Plan sponsors are encouraged to create a focused campaign that emphasizes the benefits of saving for retirement by investing in an employer-sponsored defined contribution plan. Resolution for the creation of National Retirement Security Week was passed by the Senate in 2006 and continues with bipartisan support annually.

*National Retirement Security Week was extended to National Retirement Security Month by NAGDCA in 2020.

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