Today, we are pleased to announce the recipient of our first Website Giveaway for 2010:

The Swaziland Partnership

They will receive a donated custom website design as well as one year of free hosting on our content management software. We are looking forward to working with them to develop their new website in the days ahead. To read more about the Swaziland Partnership, see their finalist page.

Today, I contacted Bob Miller at The Swaziland Partnership to let him know that his organization had been selected as the winner, and he had this to say:

We are so honored to be selected to receive a website from Element Fusion—especially in the light of the other worthy organizations that were nominated. This gift will enable the Swaziland Partnership to better communicate, recruit and secure donations as we attempt to reduce the incidents of HIV/AIDS in the nation of Swaziland and to support the thousands of AIDS orphans and at-risk children living in the wake of this devastating disease. This website will be a valuable tool as we help Oklahomans and others from around the country to channel their talents, passions, and resources to change the destiny of this vulnerable nation. Element Fusion is well known for their outstanding web products and services. We are excited to now be partnering with them on this new website.

I want to thank each of our finalist organizations, including Marriage Network Oklahoma, The Oklahoma City Orchestra League, and our winner, The Swaziland Partnership. Each of these organizations provides an amazing service to our community and they are all well loved, as evidenced by the overwhelming support they each received through our finalist voting. We are pleased to have gotten to know them through this process. Even though two of them did not receive the prize this time, they will still be in the running as nominees for our remaining giveaways in 2010. There's much more to come.

Finally, thanks to all of you for your help and support through nominating and voting for these organizations. Without your input, we would not have been able to discover and consider so many diverse organizations for our giveaway. We look forward to our upcoming giveaways in the months ahead. Remember, we're giving away three more websites in 2010, so stay tuned for details. Nominations for the next giveaway are set to begin around the end of March.

Congratulations to The Swaziland Partnership. We'll be sharing more about our progress in developing their new website in the months to come.

Last Friday, NewsOK.com published a video about Element Fusion's Website Giveaway. You can watch the video below. We'd like to say thanks to Angi Bruss and the NewsOK.com team for putting this together and helping us promote our Website Giveaway program. Remember to cast your vote for one of our finalists through this Thursday.

[The following content was provided by The Swaziland Partnership. Cast your vote for The Swaziland Partnership or check out our other finalists on our finalist page.]

The Swaziland Partnership is an Oklahoma-based organization that is taking on the challenge of reducing HIV/AIDS in the African nation of Swaziland. This small kingdom, nestled between South Africa and Mozambique has the infamous distinction of having the highest HIV/AIDS rate per capita of any nation on earth. The Swaziland Partnership, from their office in Bethany, Oklahoma, is partnering with Swazi health professionals, educators, care-givers, churches, government leaders, and international organizations to care for AIDS orphans, those suffering with the disease, and to reduce the incidents of this deadly disease which is threatening to destroy the entire nation.

The Swaziland Partnership serves as a catalyst for Oklahomans and others from around the country to channel their talents, passions, and resources to change the destiny of the nation of Swaziland.

Visit The Swaziland Partnership's current website

PLEASE NOTE: To vote for The Swaziland Partnership in Element Fusion’s Website Giveaway, you must visit the finalists page. You are free to leave your comments of support on this blog post, but these comments will not count as votes.

[The following content was provided by The Oklahoma City Orchestra League. Cast your vote for The Oklahoma City Orchestra League or check out our other finalists on our finalists page.]

The Oklahoma City Orchestra League recently celebrated 60 years of supporting orchestral music in Oklahoma City. Throughout those years, the 300+ members of the OCOL have provided award-winning music education programs for the schools of Central Oklahoma and provided key support for the success of the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. With a $0 based budget, the OCOL has directed every available "dime" to the fulfillment of their mission. The money they raise through their major projects, "Symphony Show House" and "Note-able Occasions," goes to support the 16 different educational programs they present for the benefit of the OKC community. 

Each year, 65 area schools participate in the "We've Got Rhythm" program that introduces children to musical instruments and classical music. The children in these schools plus thousands more attend the Philharmonic Youth Concerts each year -- all with the support of the OCOL. Over the last 60 years, the OCOL has endeavored to touch every child in OKC with at least one opportunity to learn about orchestral music.   People of all ages benefit from the programs of the OCOL. From suppers for the orchestra musicians to lessons for adult beginner violin students, the OCOL is bringing the joy of music to the people of Central Oklahoma through the dedication and hard work of their volunteer force.

The OCOL would benefit from an organizational website because it needs to improve communications among its members, improve its recruiting methods so it can get back on a path of growth, and develop online marketing to increase the success of its fundraising projects.

The Oklahoma City Orchestra League does not currently have a website.

PLEASE NOTE: To vote for the Oklahoma City Orchestra League in Element Fusion’s Website Giveaway, you must visit the finalists page. You are free to leave your comments of support on this blog post, but these comments will not count as votes.

[The following content was provided by Marriage Network Oklahoma. Cast your vote for Marriage Network Oklahoma or check out our other finalists on our finalists page.]

Marriage Network Oklahoma is a non-profit coalition of Christian organizations and churches. Through community collaboration, MNO serves hundreds of churches, organizations, and individuals with information and training on strengthening marriages. We let churches list their marriage events on our website at no charge. We offer all of our resources at no charge.

We have a great need to update our website into one that is more useful. MNO offers trainings to churches across the state, but many are not able to attend because of the distance. Our desire is to add a feature to our website that would make training available to churches, regardless of their location.

We also need a website that is more attractive and easier to use by limited personnel. The MNO coalition donates all of the time and financial resources to provide for the website and training. We have no revenue stream since the vast majority of what we do is without charge.

Our vision:

We exist to uphold and affirm Christian marriage and equip individuals and churches to strengthen marriages in Oklahoma.

Our mission:

We aspire to link arms with individuals and churches by:

• Inspiring a kingdom view of marriage to the Church,
• Networking resources, training and guidance for the development of multi-faceted church marriage ministries, and
• Providing information to the public about Christian marriage education classes, events, leadership training and other resources available to them.

Visit Marriage Network Oklahoma’s current website

PLEASE NOTE: To vote for Marriage Network Oklahoma in Element Fusion’s Website Giveaway, you must visit the finalists page. You are free to leave your comments of support on this blog post, but these comments will not count as votes.

Element Fusion is giving away four websites this year to four different non-profits. We’re right in the midst of our first website giveaway for 2010 and we need your help. Won’t you cast your vote for one of our finalists and help us choose our giveaway recipient?

Get to know our finalists

We received many great nominations for the giveaway this year, and we’re excited to announce our three finalists. One of the best things about our giveaway program is getting to know about so many fantastic organizations and the work they are doing. I hope you’ll take the time to read about our three finalists on our 2010 finalist page.

Cast your vote

Once you’ve read about them, help us choose a recipient by casting your vote. The voting form is also on our 2010 finalist page right under the finalist listing. Voting is now open and will be open through February 25th, 2010. Please cast your vote and also help us spread the word by inviting your friends and co-workers to do the same.

We’ve had a bit of bad weather here in Oklahoma and we know a lot of people have been preoccupied dealing with the elements. So, we wanted to extend the deadline for nominations for our Website Giveaway program for a couple of days. Nominations will now be accepted through this Thursday, February 4th. Click here to nominate an organization.

We’ve already received some great nominations and we’d love to have more. Remember that organizations nominated will be eligible for all four of our giveaways in 2010. The winning organization in each giveaway will receive a free custom website design from Element Fusion, as well as one year of free hosting on our own content management platform.

All registered non-profit organizations with operations based in Oklahoma are eligible to be nominated. And, you can even nominate your own organization.

Help us find the right organizations for our giveaway program by submitting a nomination today. Thanks for your help!

As part of our ten year anniversary celebration, we're ramping up our Website Giveaway program and giving away four websites to four non-profit organizations in 2010. Each giveaway winner will receive a free website donation valued at $5,000. This includes a free custom website design by Element Fusion's talented design team plus one year of free CMS hosting on our own content management system used by over 100,000 people worldwide. And, as usual, we're asking for your help to find and select the organizations that will receive these donations.

So, starting today, you can nominate a non-profit organization to receive the website donation. Any non-profit organization (even your own) with operations based in the State of Oklahoma is eligible for nomination. Won't you take a moment to fill out our nomination form and recommend an organization you think deserves a free website? We'll only be accepting nominations for this round through February 2nd, so submit your nominations today.

To make a nomination, please visit our Website Giveaway page.

Once the nominations have concluded, we'll select a group of finalists. Then, we'll hold a public vote to help select the winning organization from our finalist group. Of course, even after this first giveaway has ended, there are still three more giveaways to come. You only need to nominate an organization once and they will be eligible for all of our giveaways in 2010.

So, please take a moment to nominate your organization or an organization you know. Also, help us spread the word so that as many organizations as possible have the chance to participate. If you have any questions about the giveaways, you may contact us at giveaway@elementfusion.com.

Do you remember what the Internet was like ten years ago? Websites were far less common. Email was just taking hold. But excitement about this new medium was building.

At that time, three Oklahoma City entrepreneurs sat around a fold-out card table eating Papa John's pizza and looking ahead, envisioning a company that would bring world-class website development to Oklahoma City and beyond. Ten years ago, Element Fusion was born.

Ten years later, we are ready to celebrate this fantastic milestone. So, we created a little something we like to call “Element Fusion, ten years strong.” Why “ten years strong,” you ask? Because for us, it’s more than just being ten years old. For us, it’s about the strength of what’s been built – a solid, debt-free foundation coupled with rapid growth. As we always say, our company and our products are built to last.

So anyway, on to the celebrations. We’ve got a lot of great things in store that you’ll be hearing about throughout this coming year, but here’s a little overview to get you started.

The Anniversary Website

We’ve put up a little web page at 10.elementfusion.com to house information about the anniversary. You’ll also find links to this page in little badges we’ve added to the top, right corner of most of our marketing websites (including this site). Check out the anniversary site for a little bit about our history and more information about the anniversary.

The Anniversary Open House

Join us at the Element Fusion offices on March 5th, 2010 for this special party. We’ll have food, t-shirts, prizes (including an iPod Touch giveaway!), Rock Band tournaments and a whole lot more when you stop by between 1:30pm and 4:30pm. All are welcome to come and go as you please. Our whole team looks forward to meeting everyone and hanging out at the Anniversary Open House.

The Anniversary Giveaways

We’re ramping up our Website Giveaway program for 2010. We’ll be running the program four times through the year, giving away four separate website packages valued at $5,000 each to four separate non-profit organizations. As usual, we will implement a process of nominations and public voting to help select the winners so stay tuned for more information as these giveaways get going.

Stay tuned

We’ll be posting more information about all of these activities throughout the year, so stay tuned to our blog and Twitter feed for further information. As always, thank you for your support of Element Fusion over the past ten years. We look forward to serving you for the next ten years and beyond.

Element Fusion was recognized as a finalist at the 2009 Beacon Awards dinner last night. The Beacon Awards, presented by local business newspaper, The Journal Record, are designed to "recognize and honor the businesses that offer so much support to nonprofits throughout Oklahoma."

Element Fusion was recognized for our website giveaway program, implemented last year, which recognized the efforts of several Oklahoma-based non-profits and culminated in the donation of a website to Justin Sullivan, ALWF at the end of 2008. In addition, our donation of a website to the Oklahoma Chapter of the Make a Wish Foundation last year was also recognized.

The Beacon Awards recognizes businesses in two main categories — large businesses over 100 employees and small to mid-sized businesses under 100 employees. Out of 23 total finalists, only 7 were in the small to mid-sized business category, where Element Fusion was naturally listed. We appreciate the Journal Record including a category for smaller businesses. Though smaller businesses may have smaller contributions when compared to large corporations, we believe that there is a great deal of power in every small business contributing as they are able.

Thanks to the Journal Record for this honor and we look forward to continuing our website giveaway program in the future.

Perhaps you recall the first installment of Element Fusion's Website Giveaway, held last fall. Through a process of nominations and public voting, Justin Sullivan, A Life Worth Following was selected as the non-profit organization to receive our donation of a free website design and one year of free hosting on our CMS system.

Over the past several months we've been meeting with ALWF and working with them on creating their design and getting their content loaded onto their site through the CMS. Along the way, they've also established a presence on Facebook and on Twitter (I have to say that their Twitter name of @worthfollowing might just be one of the best Twitter names ever).

Now the wait is over and the site is launched. You can check it out at alifeworthfollowing.org. Of course, we've also posted a few images below so you can see the new home page design and what it looked like before. As you look around the site, keep in mind that while the design created by our team, the content was actually added by the leaders of ALWF themselves. By integrating their site onto our CMS, we gave them the ability to create and manage their site's content themselves, making it much easier for them to keep things current and fresh.

A Life Worth Following (visit the new site)

The old site

The partnership

Here's a pic from last year, the first time the leadership of ALWF visited the EF offices. From left to right: Travis Lovins, Internet Consultant for Element Fusion; Chris Wall, Director for Justin Sullivan, ALWF; Adrian Savedra, Coach for the ALWF Ambassadors baseball team; and Tim Wall, Product Marketing Director for Element Fusion.