Press Release

NAGDCA Announces Winners of 2025 Leadership Awards

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

July 17, 2025

Lexington, KY -- The National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators today announced its 2025 Leadership Awards. NAGDCA is the premier professional association for plan administrators and services providers of government-sponsored defined contribution retirement plans.

“Our members continuously impress us with their Leadership Awards submissions,” stated NAGDCA Executive Director Matt Petersen. “The winning programs in each of this year’s five categories demonstrate high levels of insight and creativity, and most importantly, achieved outstanding results in engaging employees in their defined contribution plans. Our goal in sharing these noteworthy programs is to galvanize public DC plan administrators nationwide to increase their commitment to helping participants with creative programs that inform and engage. Always essential, these qualities are especially critical now given DC plans’ ever-growing importance in enabling America’s public sector employees to adequately prepare for a secure retirement.”

The NAGDCA Leadership Awards were created to recognize and share members’ brightest ideas and most innovative solutions in topical categories. Submissions are reviewed by a volunteer Awards Committee, and judged on originality and measurable results.

The recipients of the 2025 NAGDCA Leadership Awards are:

Holistic Financial Wellness

• Bay Area Rapid Transit – 2024 Dive into Financial Wellness
• Employees Retirement System of Texas – Money Matters Financial Literacy Initiative for Active Employees
• State of Michigan 401(k) and 457 Plans – How Do I…? Campaign
• State of Hawai’i Deferred Compensation Plan – 2024 Hybrid Benefits Fairs
• State of Indiana Hoosier START Deferred Compensation Plan – Leader Campaign: Empower State Leaders for Enhanced Employee Retirement

National Retirement Security Month

• County of Los Angeles 457(b) Horizons & 401(k) Savings Plans – Using NRSM 2024 to help current and future retirees live large in LA
• State of Missouri Deferred Compensation Plan – Scary-Smart Retirement Savings
• North Carolina Department of State Treasurer – 2024 NRSM HILL (Health, Income, Longevity, Legacy) Campaign

Participant Education & Communication

• City of Oakland Retirement Plans – 2024 Grand Prix Race Challenge Campaign
• Ohio Deferred Compensation – Ohio Employer Recognition Program
• Port of Seattle – Sail Towards Your Financial Future Campaign
• California Savings Plus – Savings Plus 2024 Roadmap to Retirement Readiness Campaign
• Washoe County’s Deferred Compensation Plan – 2024-2025 Investment Diversification Campaign

Plan Design & Administration

• California Public Employees’ Retirement System 457 Plan – Implementing Roth Contributions and Online Enrollment Project
• Prince George’s County – 457(b) Enhancement Project; Expanded Tools, Streamlined Access, Paper-Free Progress
• State of Hawai’i Deferred Compensation Plan – 2024-2025 Temporary Hazard Pay Deferral Opportunity
• State Universities Retirement System of Illinois – Adding Automatic Contribution Escalation to the Deferred Compensation Plan
• The State University of New York (SUNY) – Custom Target Date Fund-STARS

Technology & Cybersecurity

• City of Los Angeles Deferred Compensation Plan – Stay Aware Cybersafe: The DCP Cybersecurity Awareness Assessment
• California Savings Plus – Savings Plus 2024 Simplified Enrollment and Onboarding Experience
• Florida Deferred Compensation Plan – One Voice Initiative-Call Monitoring Score Sheets
• State of Missouri Deferred Compensation Plan – Website Redesign x 3

Additional information about NAGDCA’s 2025 Leadership Awards winners may be found here.

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. NAGDCA’s members include 270 governmental plan sponsor members represent 15,000 governments in 49 states, administering governmental deferred compensation and defined contribution plans, including Section 457(b), 401(k), 401(a), and 403(b) plans.

Additionally, NAGDCA is a co-founder with the Employee Benefit Research Institute of the Public Retirement Research Lab (PRRL), 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. To learn more about NAGDCA, visit https://www.nagdca.org/.

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