The CWS Family Trust
Named for Clyde. Built for family.
A family trust named for Clyde W. Snyder. It brings his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren together, helps them look after one another, and funds the CWS Family Foundation his grandchildren are organizing.
Who we’re named for
The happiest man on the boat.
Clyde W. Snyder, 1933–2022
Clyde was an artist and a teacher, and for sixty years an elder of the Bible Fellowship Church. He held his faith dear, and he loved his children, grandchildren, family and friends whoever they called their God.
Money was never the point in the Snyder family. Fishing trips, full tables at family gatherings and showing up for others were.
The trust’s mission
Named for Clyde. Built for family.
The CWS Family Trust carries forward what Clyde W. Snyder valued most: family that stays close, time spent together and doing good for others.
The trust was created in 2023 and named for Clyde W. Snyder (1933–2022), an artist and teacher who served as an elder of the Bible Fellowship Church for sixty years. Clyde held his faith dear, and he loved his children, grandchildren, family and friends whoever they called their God. In the Snyder family, money was never the point; fishing trips, full tables at family gatherings and showing up for others were. The trust turns those values into something lasting: time together, support for one another, and the CWS Family Foundation, which Clyde’s grandchildren are organizing.
What the trust stands for
Family, whoever they call their God
Everyone in Clyde’s family is welcome at the table, and no one has to earn a place.
Everyone has a say
The family writes its own constitution and values, and decides together by vote.
Taking part is a choice
Every relative chooses how involved to be, and can change their mind at any time.
Money is never the point
The trust’s money is a tool for time together and doing good, never the goal.
What the trust does
Time together, help when it’s needed, and a foundation to carry it on.
Each commitment carries an honest status. The family organizes in 2027, and the trust’s funding begins in 2028.
- Planned for 2028
Makes time for family
Beginning in 2028, the trust helps fund the trips and gatherings the family plans and votes on together, the kind of days Clyde loved.
- Designed
Supports family within an annual budget
Financial aid and resources for family members, within a budget set each year. A family council decides requests under published guidelines.
- Designed
Helps family members build their own security
Co-funding that helps family members put lasting protections in place, such as insurance policies, retirement accounts and trusts for their own families, alongside practical finances taught with qualified advisors.
- Planned for 2028
Funds the CWS Family Foundation
The trust funds the CWS Family Foundation every year from 2028, with no end date. The foundation is fully independent of the trust and reflects the will of Clyde’s grandchildren and their descendants.
- Designed
Supports causes the family chooses
Each year the family council may vote to support causes, religious or not, that fit the mission the family writes. Our family has seen the harm religious extremism and cults can do, so helping people leave cults and high-control groups, and countering religious extremism, are offered to the family for a vote, never imposed.
- Designed
Decides together
A family constitution drafted in 2027, a family council, votes in the portal, and a clear path for working through disagreements.
CWS Family Foundation
A foundation his grandchildren will write.
- Being organized
- Annual funding from 2028
The CWS Family Foundation is a planned nonprofit that Clyde’s grandchildren are organizing now. Its mission is not written yet, on purpose: the grandchildren write it together and renew it with a vote every year.
The 2023 CWS Family Trust has committed annual, ongoing funding beginning in 2028.
The foundation is fully independent of the trust. It reflects the will of Clyde’s grandchildren and their descendants, and its decisions and disagreements are its own.
It is being established in honor of Clyde W. Snyder and the family virtues he lived by: staying close, making time, doing good.
The line to 2028
Created, organized, then funded.
2023
The trust is created
DoneThe 2023 CWS Family Trust is created and named for Clyde W. Snyder.
2027
The family organizes
Planned for 2027A year to get ready together, before any funding begins:
- Find and invite family
- Open family accounts
- Draft the family constitution
- Set the first annual budget
- Plan the first family trip
2028
Funding begins
Planned for 2028The trust begins funding family time, family support and the CWS Family Foundation, every year from then on.
Behind the family sign-in
One dock for the whole family.
These pages tell the trust’s story. Everything else, from the trust’s reports to the family budget, votes and trip plans, lives behind sign-in for verified family members only.
- Pilot
One family sign-in
Relatives sign in through Federated Trust, so every account belongs to a verified person and access can be granted or taken back.
- Designed
Trust holdings and reports
What the trust holds and how it is doing, with its regular reports. Visible only to signed-in, verified family members, and never published on these public pages.
- Designed
Annual budget and requests for aid
See the year’s family budget and the published guidelines, ask for support, and follow your request through the family council.
- Designed
Votes and council records
Vote on the family’s representatives and the questions put to the family, and read the family council’s minutes and decisions.