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“In 2015 we implemented entirely new ways of driving change in a deeply entrenched system.

And we have the data to prove it.”

Laurie Rowley, Co-Founder and President, NARPP

This year was all about challenging the status quo and breaking boundaries to redefine what’s possible in the retirement savings industry.

We’ve proven that what’s possible is building trust, increasing engagement, and improving participant outcomes when we radically reimagine communications with a scientifically-rigorous, human-centered design strategy.

The great news is that when you put people at the center of communication and education, you can have serious impact – the kind of impact that changes peoples’ lives.

Here are some of the highlights of our 2015 accomplishments.

We expanded our plan sponsor coalition to over 2000 members, representing over 7 million participants.

By combining behavioral finance and human centered design, we were able to increase voluntary plan participation by 23% and improved savings rates by 600%.

We educated over 20,000 people about retirement by providing simplified, transparent, and well-designed financial information.

We spoke to over 10,000 plan sponsors about how we can help their employees be more engaged with their financial futures.

A Look Back

1. Innovation

In 2015, we radically transformed communications into a powerful engagement tool. Working with plan sponsors, recordkeepers and asset managers around the country, we re-engineered communications using Intuitive Sustained Engagement (ISE™). ISE is the first behaviorally effective, award-winning education system, informed by best practices from behavioral finance, human-centered design, and from insights about the importance of trust from our own proprietary research.

In partnership with a large State Plan Sponsor we implemented ISE for a complete communications redesign, and the results were dramatic:

We effected a 25% increase in voluntary enrollment in the Sponsor’s 457 plan,

as well as a 600% increase in the use of SMarT – all in a period of four months.

2. Thought Leadership

We continued to prove the importance of trust in financial decision making through more robust and expansive versions of our participant “FELT Study,” and “Plan Sponsor Trust and Confidence Study.”

Participant trust in service providers remains a low 12%. Low trust levels combined with poor education and communications continue to negatively impact engagement.

3. Awards

NARPP won a Webby in 2015 for the first version of our website.

We won an Innovator Award for the work we did in Ohio.

We were honored with an Innovator Award for development of a risk questionnaire.

“We can see using ISE in all of our other employee communications. I have never seen anything like this…”

Plan Sponsor 50,000+ participants

4. Sustainability

To expand our reach and deepen our impact, in 2015 we launched NARPP Labs – an award-winning think tank that collaborates with industry stakeholders to design and innovate solutions for some of the biggest challenges in retirement savings.

“I really like the behavioral aspects of it and the way the story is simplified. This is a huge leap forward in participant communications.”

Plan Sponsor 10,000+ participants

5. Reach

NARPP was asked by NAGDCA to help develop a campaign to increase savings, to be used by all NAGDCA members whose plans represent millions of working Americans.

NARPP was asked to speak at CIEBA, DCIAA, and other industry conferences.

Laurie Rowley, NARPP President and Co-Founder, was asked to participate in the “U.S. Retirement Thought Leadership Roundtable,” hosted by BlackRock and GCOA.

We were featured on: NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Pensions & Investments etc.

Additionally, Professor Punam Keller testified before Congress on how communications can help solve some of the challenges in retirement savings.

2015 has been an amazing year, with big changes happening. And we’re looking forward to affecting even bigger change in the year ahead.

Join us in our mission to build a more financially secure future for everyone.

NARPP is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to advocate for individual savers. Through pioneering research, independent coalition building, and innovative educational programs, NARPP is making financial information transparent and universally accessible for the 145 million working Americans saving for retirement. 


narpp.org

(415) 509-9687     contact@narpp.org