Thank you @merefield that got me 90% of what I needed and I was able to update your SQL statement to my needs like so:
SELECT c.name as NAME,
COUNT(cu.id) as subscribers
FROM category_users cu
JOIN categories c ON cu.category_id = c.id
WHERE
c.name LIKE '%Announcements%'
AND
(cu.notification_level = 2
OR
cu.notification_level = 3
OR
cu.notification_level = 4)
GROUP BY c.id, c.name
ORDER BY subscribers DESC, c.name