Formcode Growth Review, First Edition / Applebaum Family Philanthropy / August 2026
You cannot review the growth of a site that launched three weeks ago. You can do something better: measure the starting line so precisely that next year's review writes itself. That is this page. We pulled the search record for both of your domains, tested how the old one hands off to the new one, and watched how the unified home behaves after hours. What we found is a baseline worth keeping and eleven findings worth thinking about.
Everything in the signed scope, finished and live. The Applebaum Family Philanthropy site and the Eugene Applebaum legacy site are now one home at applebaumphilanthropy.org. Listed once, and then we move on.
Every number in this section comes from SEMrush industry search data pulled August 5, 2026, and from our own live tests of your two domains. Your own Google Search Console history starts accumulating from launch, and next year's edition reads from it directly.
Old home, applebaumlegacy.org, estimated monthly search visits applebaumphilanthropy.org, the foundation site, now the unified home
Five years of both homes' search lives, ending in the July 2026 merge that absorbed the legacy site into applebaumphilanthropy.org. The 2024 peak proves the Applebaum story can earn real attention when it is active. The red line is not a problem, it is a starting point: the merge deliberately concentrates everything in one place, and this chart is what day zero looks like. Next July we lay the new line over this one.
The name ranks well, which is exactly right for a family foundation. The gap is everyone else: at day zero there is no path to the site that does not start with already knowing it exists.
Real monthly searches by students and grant-seekers who do not know the name yet. The same questions are now being asked to AI assistants, where nobody is measuring you at all. Findings 04 and 08 exist for this chart.
The point of this page
Day 0
Measured August 5, 2026. Compared July 2027.
This is the first edition of a review we will run for you every year. Most agencies launch a site and wave goodbye. We put a stake in the ground instead: every number on this page has a date on it, and in twelve months the second edition shows movement against each one. The findings below are the levers. Whatever you choose to pull, the measuring is already running.
| Newest published story | Nov 4, 2025 | F-08 |
| Search terms ranked, unified home | 19 | F-04 |
| Search visits arriving via the name | 100% | F-04 |
| Newsletter sends visible since launch | 0 | F-03 |
| After-hours inquiry response | Next open inbox | F-01 |
| GuideStar profile | Unclaimed | F-05 |
| Old links reaching the new home, plain http | 1 in 6 | F-06 |
| Email spoofing protection | Monitor-only | F-07 |
| AI assistant coverage of your programs | Unwatched | F-04 |
| Free Google search ads, up to $10K/mo | Appears unused | F-11 |
And then there is the grant
$10,000/mo
Free Google search advertising that Applebaum Family Philanthropy, as a 501(c)(3), appears to qualify for. Unused today, and never used in the five-year record of either domain.
Google grants verified nonprofits up to $10,000 every month in search ads, placed on the very searches shown above where you are absent. The media never touches your budget, and it does not wait for rankings to grow: ads sit at the top while the organic work compounds underneath. Because the media is free, the return is built in before the first click. Eligibility is decided by Google's validation partner, so we confirm it before anything is promised. Managing the campaigns is the only cost.
Search visits today Added by grant-funded ads
An illustration, not a forecast, using the program's $2.00 per-click pricing. How much of the grant gets used depends on campaign quality and compliance, which is the part we manage.
It is a Tuesday night in October. A junior at Michigan State finds the internship page and does exactly what it tells her to do: she emails [email protected]. What happens next depends entirely on when someone on a small team opens that inbox. She does not know that. She only knows how long she waited.
The site did its job. It collected her interest at 9:40 PM without anyone lifting a finger. Every finding below is a version of the same question.
The site works 24/7. The follow-up keeps office hours.
Each finding is something we observed, not something we assume, and each ends in a question worth sitting with. Check anything you want to talk about. A checkbox is a conversation, not a commitment: your picks come straight to Jim, and prices arrive only for what you checked. Every system here reaches only people who contacted you or opted in.
Finding 01
Your site invites students to email hello@ to learn about the internship, and invites everyone else, partners, grant-seekers, the curious, to write through the same inbox. Some weeks the reply is same-day. During program season, the calendar wins.
Interest arrives 24/7. Answers arrive on office hours.
How many of last summer's applicants wrote at night, and how long did each one wait?
Finding 02
The internship season runs on touchpoints: the kickoff, Detroit Day, the End of Summer Celebration, quarterly Fellows gatherings. The thank-yous and recaps after each one depend on whoever has time that week, and the most recent published recap is from last fall.
The program creates its best stories in the 48 hours after each event, and that window mostly closes unused.
What did the interns say at last year's celebration that never got written down?
Finding 03
The homepage tells subscribers they will be the first to hear about new stories and program updates, and the signup is wired to a live Mailchimp list.
People are joining a list that, as far as we can see, has nothing scheduled to arrive.
What does silence teach the people who asked to hear from you?
Finding 04
Students researching Detroit internships and journalists researching Michigan philanthropy increasingly ask AI assistants instead of Google, and those tools answer from whatever they can find and cite.
Nobody is watching what AI assistants say about Applebaum Family Philanthropy, or whether they mention the programs at all.
If a student asked an AI assistant tonight for Detroit internships in the arts, would you be in the answer?
Finding 05
Grant-seekers, journalists, and partner organizations check GuideStar and the foundation directories before they reach out. Yours is unclaimed, reports no program information, and several directories still list applebaumlegacy.org as your website.
The places people go to verify you describe an older, quieter foundation than the one you actually run.
When did anyone on the team last read your GuideStar page the way a stranger would?
Finding 06
We tested the old applebaumlegacy.org repeatedly. Over https it forwards cleanly to the new site every time. Over plain http, the protocol most old links, bookmarks, and email references still use, it fails five times out of six.
Most of the links the old site earned over the years currently lead to an error page.
How many articles, resource pages, and saved emails still point at the old address?
Finding 07
The domain sends real mail through Microsoft and Mailchimp, and its DMARC policy is set to monitor-only. Receiving servers are told to watch spoofed mail, not stop it, and family foundations are a favorite costume for scammers.
Nothing currently blocks an email that pretends to be from applebaumphilanthropy.org.
Would a partner organization spot the difference before they replied?
Finding 11
Google gives verified 501(c)(3) organizations up to $10,000 every month in free search advertising, placed on exactly the searches charted above. In the five-year record of both of your domains there is no paid search activity at all, and the grant appears unused. Eligibility is confirmed by Google's validation partner before anything is promised.
Free media exists for the searches you are absent from, and nobody has claimed it.
If a student's search could show you at the top of the page tonight at no media cost, what is the argument for staying invisible?
Finding 08
The archive holds thirteen pages of stories, and the newest is dated November 4, 2025, on a site that launched in July 2026.
A first-time visitor's most recent evidence of the foundation at work is from last year.
Does the front of the archive read like a living foundation or a finished one?
Finding 09
A Year in Review tag already exists in the archive, and the last highlights piece covers 2023. Meanwhile the grants, the interns, and the programs kept happening.
Two years of the foundation's work have no single page that gathers them.
If Lisa or Pamela needed to show someone the year, what link would they send?
Finding 10
Analytics and search verification are wired into the new site, so the numbers exist: which stories get read, who subscribes, how fast inquiries get answered. Nobody is currently reading them back to you.
The site is generating answers to questions nobody is asking it.
What would you do differently if you knew which story got read the most?
If you take everything, this is the order we would run it. Foundations first so nothing leaks, the follow-up engine second, compounding work after. Whatever you select, we build the schedule around it, and the July 2027 review reads the results.
Nothing leaks, nothing spoofs.
Scripts approved, piloted, then live.
Verified, applied, then managed.
The archive starts moving again.
The program season, then the wrap.
Running underneath all of it, into the 2027 edition.
You are not buying a bundle. We price only what you check, as a one-time figure, a monthly figure, or both.
Your selections start a conversation, not a contract. We send a scope, you decide, and it is built to be shared with the family and the board.
Every month you see story readership, signups, inquiries answered, and hours saved, against the baseline above. If a system is not paying for itself, we say so.
The build was the expensive part, and it is behind you. Eugene's story has one home now, and as of today that home has a measured starting line. The question the next twelve months answer is whether it also answers when someone knocks. Check what matters. The mission work stays yours, and the measuring is already ours.
We will come back with a scope and pricing for these items only.