Nominations were made in December and January, finalists are announced in March, and winners are announced in June. To be considered, we must first receive a nomination for the award, which can come from the plan sponsor itself. All nominees are then asked to officially enter and complete an online form, supplying details about the plan’s administration, participant statistics and data. Only those that complete the form are considered.

The number of finalists selected depends on the number of entries in each category. Entries are judged both against other nominations in the category and on the basis of optimal practices specific to each plan sponsor’s industry. Given the amount of entries we receive each year, there are plan sponsors that have honorable stories that are not chosen as finalists. We reach out to those plan sponsors for plan profiles, and we encourage any plans that were nominated to consider applying again in the future.

The 2023 awards have nine categories to allow for the most accurate comparisons across plan types and sizes:

• Public Defined Contribution (DC)
• Nonprofit DC <$300MM
• Nonprofit DC $300MM and Greater
• Corporate DC <$25MM
• Corporate DC $25MM – $150MM
• Corporate DC >$150MM – $250mm
• Corporate DC >$250MM – $1B
• Corporate DC >$1B
• Total Retirement Offering

Congratulations to the 2023 Plan Sponsor of the Year winners and finalists!

—PLANSPONSOR Staff