Farm Credit Foundations

NOMINATOR COMMENTS

I am honored to nominate Farm Credit Foundations for the prestigious 2025 Plan Sponsor of the Year Award. This family-oriented, ‘employee first’ company exemplifies the commitment and innovation necessary to make retirement income security a reality for its employees.

Farm Credit Foundations is a collaboration of Farm Credit employers that have come together to create a centralized HR shared services model focused on meeting their own human capital needs. It is a federally chartered instrumentality of the United States, charted by the Farm Credit Administration, operating independently since January 1, 2012.

At FCF, employees are at the heart of every decision. Their holistic approach goes beyond workplace productivity to address the full spectrum of their employees’ well-being, and that philosophy starts at the top with their two dedicated committees. The Trust Committee and Plan Sponsor Committee ensure the retirement plan is governed in the best interest of participants and that Farm Credit offers best-in-class benefits to all employees. Their commitment and dedication are integrated into the everyday operations which drives their decisionmaking process.

As a financial organization serving rural America, FCF has a deep understanding of the unique challenges faced by farmers and ranchers. This insight drives its efforts to promote financial wellness and retirement readiness for its workforce in meaningful ways. For example, 59% of its population are women, and many have spouses who are farmers. This plan is oftentimes their only opportunity to save for retirement, with one person trying to save enough for two. That is a big undertaking! We know a well-designed plan, impactful engagement and a variety of tools and resources can help meet those challenges head-on, and Farm Credit is doing just that! The results speak for themselves.

PLANSPONSOR: Please cite any noteworthy initiatives you have taken in the past 24 to 36 months that have produced results to improve your plan, and describe the results.

FCF: In 2024, Farm Credit team members traveled to 12 cities, facilitated 12 “Build Your Retirement” workshops for those aged 50 and older, 11 “Building a Strong Foundation” workshop for those younger than 50 and nine virtual meetings. In total, more than 1,600 employees attended. Additional educational topics such as estate planning and Social Security were covered. They do this every year!

Monthly, Farm Credit conducts new hire benefits orientation and retirement process planning calls. Custom enrollment and plan highlights videos were created to support HR partners and participants throughout the country.

A pilot spillover campaign was designed to remind participants they can be matched on spillover contributions. Forty-six employees adopted the spillover contribution as a result. This important communication will now become an annual campaign that promotes the benefits of contributing to the spillover source, and participation and open rates will be tracked.

FCF created a custom campaign to highlight account consolidation services that support rollover requests. Going forward, new hires will receive a quarterly reminder of these services. The goal is to provide white-glove service when rolling over accounts and to streamline the rollover process.

FCF also adopted a Retirement Evaluation Program that provides a custom communication to each employee, giving them insights into their personal saving, diversification and income replacement outcomes, as well as action steps in areas of opportunity. In conjunction with this program, a participant guide was created detailing the investment advice program, both online advice and professional management. Additionally, we completed an account registration promotion for both terminated and active employees to remind participants about the importance of registering their accounts, as well as ongoing best practices to keep their accounts safe.

This year, for our Plan Sponsor of the Year profiles, we are publishing Q&As based on the finalists’ applications and nominator comments. Responses are edited and may be paraphrased. In cases where the finalist self-nominated or, on its application, referred judges to the nomination for the answer, we have attributed those nominator answers to the plan sponsor.