Press Release

Ohio Public Employees Deferred Compensation Program and iGrad's Enrich™ Financial Wellness Platform Receive Pension and Investments Eddy Award

Issued by Ohio Deferred Compensation

Mar. 21, 2022

 COLUMBUS, OHIO — The Ohio Public Employees Deferred Compensation Program (Ohio DC) in partnership with iGrad’s Enrich™ platform and Nationwide took first place in the financial wellness category among public plans with more than 5,000 participants at the annual Eddy Awards sponsored by Pensions & Investments (P&I).

 The Eddy Awards identify and reward best practices in providing investment education to defined contribution plan participants. Ohio DC launched the Enrich financial wellness online platform in 2021.

”Promoting the financial wellness of our participants and helping them improve their overall level of financial understanding is essential to our mission at Ohio DC,” said Ohio DC Executive Director Christina Elliott. “With all the economic turmoil of the last several years, we felt that now was the perfect time to provide our participants with a tool to help them improve their financial wellness and Enrich was exactly the partner we were looking for.”

The Enrich platform, which Ohio DC participants can access at https://ohio457.enrich.org, features the Your Money Personality™ financial behavior assessment that analyzes each user’s financial “personality.” The interactive, mobile-friendly platform also provides:

• A Financial Wellness Checkup which personalizes the platform for each user
• Interactive financial education courses with personalized action plans on topics including budgeting, mortgages, healthcare, college savings, student loan repayment, banking, credit, financial planning and more
• An investment allocation analyzer
• A student loan tracker
• Personal finance calculators and a real-time budget tool

The winning entry was a joint effort of Ohio DC, iGrad and Nationwide, featuring the ongoing campaign to engage members in reducing financial stress by improving money-management skills and financial knowledge. Nationwide was critical in designing marketing materials, including monthly targeted emails to two age groups, rotating web banners, newsletter content and graphics, delivering the “Improving Retirement Outcomes for Your Employees presentation, and delivering the Participant Enrich presentations.

 “Financial wellness has become even more important because of the additional financial stresses caused by the pandemic,” said iGrad founder and President Rob LaBreche. “We are pleased to be recognized alongside Ohio DC with the Eddy Award for our Enrich financial wellness platform, which is proven to reduce financial stress with easy-to-understand, customized and individualized programs.”

 The 2022 award was announced at P&I’s annual East Coast Defined Contribution Conference in Orlando, Fla. on March 15.

 About Ohio Deferred Compensation

Ohio DC is an IRC 457 deferred compensation plan designed to provide a tax-advantaged supplemental retirement plan for state and local government employees. Ohio DC is governed by a 13-member Board of Trustees comprised of public employees, retirees, and appointed investment experts, as required by Ohio Revised Code Chapter 148. Ohio DC provides retirement savings to over 243,000 active and retired public employees. Visit https://www.ohio457.org for more information.

 About iGrad

iGrad is a San Diego-based financial technology company that offers artificial intelligence-powered financial wellness solutions to more than 600 colleges and universities, more than 20,000 employers and more than 300 financial institutions. For more information about the Enrich platform for employers and financial institutions, visit https://www.enrich.org.

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