Since it was established in 2018, the Marian S. Snyder Fund of Berks County Community Foundation has made a seismic impact on local, state, and national organizations.
The fund, which names six organizations to which grants can be awarded, distributed $680,400.00 in fiscal year 2026. This most recent grant cycle brings the total amount granted to $4,564,206.50 since 2018.
But who are the beneficiaries of the Marian S. Snyder Fund, and who exactly was Marian Snyder? The first question is easier to answer than the latter.
Within the fund agreement signed on September 18, 2018, the Estate of Marian S. Snyder designated the following organizations as potential grant beneficiaries:
- Berks County Association for the Blind (now known as Vision Resource Center of Berks County.)
- Foundation for the Reading Public Museum
- Berks Visiting Nurse Association (now closed; Tower Health at Home acquired the association’s clients and contracts). Funding therefore goes to Tower Health at Home.
As a part of Mrs. Snyder’s estate planning, she expressed her wishes for Berks County Community Foundation to make distributions to one or more of the organizations identified, so long as they apply the funding toward creating a more sustainable and effective business model. Simply put, Marian Snyder wanted to help these organizations grow and thrive for a long, long time.
The organizations the Marian S. Snyder Fund supports tout impressive offerings and programming. $60,000 of the most recent grant cycle was awarded to American Cancer Society (ACS) for the Philadelphia Hope Lodge, which provides lodging, transportation, and an array of support services for Berks County cancer patients receiving care in the greater Philadelphia area.
Vision Resource Center of Berks County received $45,000 in that same grant cycle for marketing and the installation of a security system. The center provides free services, vision screenings, meaningful employment, and a Low Vision Store to enhance independent living. A security system that can adequately alert individuals across the visual impairment spectrum is necessary for the safety and comfort of all its visitors.
In 2024, Berks County Community Foundation distributed $250,000 from the Marian S. Snyder Fund to the Foundation for the Reading Public Museum in support of construction and renovations to the building, as well as the hiring of a full-time development team member.
Animal Rescue League (ARL) of Berks County offers medical and animal control services, animal surrender prevention support, and animal cruelty investigation services. In fiscal year 2026, $135,400 was awarded to ARL of Berks County for staff development, facility upgrades, expanded veterinary services, modern equipment, and targeted community outreach.
Humane Pennsylvania’s Healthy Pets Initiative (HPI) seeks to provide meaningful access to veterinary care that anyone can afford. From a full service, nationally accredited animal hospital, to walk-in wellness clinics and pay-what-you can neighborhood vaccination clinics, HPI has ways for everyone to get their pets critical health care. The expanded pet food pantry, which is open seven days a week at each Berks adoption center, features kiosks for improved accessibility. In fiscal year 2026, the Marian S. Snyder Fund supported HPI and the pet food pantry with a $100,000 grant.
The last grant made in fiscal year 2026 from the Marian S. Snyder Fund of Berks County Community Foundation was distributed to Tower Health at Home; this home healthcare program allows patients to recover from illness or manage chronic conditions in the comfort of their homes, surrounded by their loved ones. $90,000 was granted for the purchase of 5G-enabled iPads to implement Comfort, the Hospice component of Epic, an electronic health record (EHR) platform. The iPads and Comfort aim to enhance patient safety and efficiency.
Cindy Milian, Health and Human Services Program Officer, is not the only Community Foundation team member to know Marian S. Snyder through charitable legacy alone. In fact, very little is known about the Berks County philanthropist. What we do know was discovered through obituaries and other county records.
Marian S. (Schaffer) Snyder was a graduate of Kutztown State Teachers College, now Kutztown University, and was certified to teach English, geography, history and social studies. After college, she completed a course of study at McCann School of Business, now known as Berks Technical Institute (BTI).
She worked as a secretary for 15 years at American Casualty Company, later CNA, first for the company’s personnel director and later for the president. After her marriage to fellow Berks Countian and Attorney Fredrick R. Snyder, she assisted her husband in his law practice part time until his retirement, soon before his death.
Attorney Frederick Snyder was a 1935 graduate of Reading High School, a 1939 graduate of Princeton University, and a 1943 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He attended Harvard Law School and served in the Army Signal Corps, 111th Radio Intelligence Company in the South Pacific. In 1943, after graduating from law school in Philadelphia, Frederick was admitted to the Berks County Court of Common Pleas and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. In 1956, Frederick was admitted to the United States District Court and then the Supreme Court of the United States of America in 1968. Fredrick remained an active member of the Berks community until his death in 2006; he was a member of Grace Lutheran Church in Reading and held leadership positions in organizations including the Exchange Club of Reading, Reading YMCA, the Masonic Center Foundation of Reading, and the Reading Fair.
For her part, Marian was a member of several civic and social organizations in Berks County before her death in 2018. She would have been honored as a 50-year member of the Order of the Eastern Star, Reading Chapter #251, had she not passed before the celebration could take place.
One could assume that Fredrick and Marian Snyder bonded over shared values of service and community. Marian Snyder’s bequest to the Community Foundation ensures her charitable legacy lasts forever.
“Leaving a bequest to the Community Foundation is one way for those who are philanthropic to support the community they love long after they are gone. Marian Snyder had the foresight to create a plan to support the organizations and causes that meant the most to her,” says Molly McCullough Robbins, Vice President for Philanthropic Services.
Berks County Community Foundation believes anyone can make a difference in our community. While the funds we manage range in size and scope, the meaningful support each fund provides cannot be compared to one another: support is felt, not weighed. In the case of Marian S. Snyder, her fund tells us she loved animals and cared about accessible and dignified healthcare; she valued the arts and culture; she knew philanthropy played a major role in the sustainability of the causes she loved, and she planned to give generously.
Are you interested in planning for future support of the causes you love? You can also create your own fund to benefit the causes and organizations you love by visiting Plan Your Giving.
Remember: change starts with a spark. Your spark.
Nonprofit organizations and educational institutions occasionally change their mission or cease operations. Establishing an endowed fund with a community foundation is one strategy donors can implement to ensure their charitable dollars support the causes they love in perpetuity.
Headlines about college closures, budget deficits, and declining enrollment have become increasingly common. For donors who care deeply about supporting higher education, these stories raise an important question: How can you ensure your charitable gift continues to achieve its intended purpose if the institution you support faces financial challenges or even closes its doors?
In some cases, institutions facing serious financial pressure have sought access to restricted endowment funds to address immediate operational needs. Some have done so with donor consent. Others have pursued legal avenues to modify donor restrictions after the donor’s death. Saint Michael’s College in Vermont, for example, sought court approval to access restricted funds during a financial crisis.
This raises the question: What does it mean for donors when an organization they support raids their endowment?
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Joanne Florino, Philanthropy Roundtable’s Adam Meyerson Distinguished Fellow in Philanthropic Excellence, discussed the risks that arise when financially distressed colleges turn to restricted endowment funds to meet immediate financial obligations. Although doing so may seem like a short-term solution, it violates donor intent, undermines trust, and can be an early warning sign of deeper institutional decline. Florino points to a scholarship fund that was used to cover expenses at a college that ultimately closed. When the donor later attempted to have the remaining funds transferred to another school so the scholarship could continue serving students, the request was denied.
So, what can a donor do to support the nonprofit, college or university that is important to them without worrying about possible closure, reallocation of funds, or placing the burden of financial management on those organizations?
These challenges highlight the importance of careful charitable planning. Donors who wish to support a specific college, university, or nonprofit organization may want to consider structures that provide long-term protection for their charitable goals. Using a third party to invest and manage an endowment is a way to provide perpetual support for nonprofits. Funds can be managed by commercial financial institutions or a community foundation.
Community foundations across the country provide donors with ways to create endowed funds that support the organizations and causes most meaningful to them. One option is to establish an endowed fund at a community foundation and designate a college, university, or nonprofit as the annual beneficiary. This allows donors to support the organizations they love while ensuring that an independent, charitable steward manages the assets. If circumstances change, such as a merger, closure, or significant change in mission, the fund agreement provides guidance for how the donor’s charitable intent should be honored.
Donors make charitable gifts in the hope that their generosity will make a lasting impact. By working with a community foundation, donors can support the organizations and causes they care about today while creating safeguards that help ensure their charitable intent is honored for generations to come.
At Berks County Community Foundation, our mission is to promote philanthropy and improve the quality of life for the residents of Berks County. We currently steward nearly 400 charitable funds, 290 of which are endowed. Like the endowed funds we manage, the Community Foundation is built to serve the community in perpetuity. As a permanent presence in Berks County, we will continue to honor donors’ charitable wishes, adapt to the community’s evolving needs, and work every day to make Berks County a better place to live, work, and thrive.
Molly McCullough Robbins, Vice President for Philanthropic Services at Berks County Community Foundation, earned the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® (CAP®) designation from The American College of Financial Services.
The CAP® designation is a distinguished mark of excellence recognizing expertise in philanthropic and legacy planning, tax strategies, and financial planning related to charitable giving. To earn the CAP® designation, Robbins completed a three-course graduate-level curriculum and accompanying exams to complete each course.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue growing in this field and confident that this knowledge will enhance my work with donors at the Community Foundation—supporting thoughtful, strategic giving that makes a difference in our community now and for generations to come,” says Robbins.
While the CAP® designation from The American College of Financial Services signifies expert knowledge of charitable planning, the course also offers skill development in interpersonal and donor relationships.
“There is no one-size-fits-all in charitable giving: how people choose to give and to whom they give are deeply personal choices. I love participating in that process,” says Robbins. “This experience has deepened my understanding of charitable planning and strengthened my ability to help individuals and families align their philanthropic goals with meaningful impact.”
Prior to her role at the Community Foundation, Robbins spent five years as Executive Director of Wyomissing Area Education Foundation and 10 years as Director of Communications and Assistant to the Director of Advancement for an independent school in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Robbins completed Berks County Community Foundation’s Nonprofit Management Certificate program in 2020, prior to joining the Community Foundation in her current role. As a Wyomissing Area High School graduate, Robbins’ dedication to the vitality of Berks County is evident.
Interested in working with Molly McCullough Robbins to achieve your philanthropic goals? Email her at mollyr@bccf.org or call the foundation at 610-685-2223.
Welcome to the Great Wealth Transfer!
This much cited era, happening right now, is reportedly the time when trillions of dollars will pass from one generation to the next over the coming decades in various forms, ranging from cash and stock to real estate and business interests.
Understandably, most conversations and commentary about this transfer focus on the assets themselves. Who will inherit the family business? What will happen to the investment portfolio? How should the estate plan be structured? Naturally, those are important questions! But many families are beginning to ask something deeper: “What values do we want to pass along, too?”
A recent Kiplinger article exploring the Great Wealth Transfer makes the point that the strongest family legacies are built not simply by transferring assets, but by intentionally passing along values of generosity through shared charitable experiences and conversations. It encourages families to involve younger generations in philanthropy early, making giving a collaborative, multigenerational experience rather than a one-time financial transaction.
For many people, philanthropy is one of those values. If you’re among them, here’s food for thought:
- A charitable legacy isn’t simply about the gifts that are made after you’re gone. It’s also about helping your children and grandchildren understand why giving has been important throughout your life. In many ways, the conversations, traditions, and shared decisions surrounding philanthropy can become just as meaningful as the inheritance itself.
- Now is a great time to begin mapping out your legacy if you’ve not done so already. For starters, August is widely recognized as Make-A-Will Month, in large part because the downtime of late summer offers a perfect window to address open estate planning issues.
- According to the latest Giving USA report, charitable bequests totaled more than $62 billion in 2025, increasing nearly 20% over the previous year. Bequests were the fastest-growing source of charitable giving, underscoring how important estate gifts have become to nonprofit organizations and the communities they serve.
- A charitable bequest can be surprisingly simple. You might leave a specific dollar amount or a percentage of your estate to your donor-advised fund or designate another type of charitable fund at the Community Foundation, to continue supporting the organizations and community priorities that matter most to you. For example, by naming your children or other loved ones as successor advisors of your donor-advised fund at the Community Foundation, you’re inviting them to continue the family’s tradition of generosity by recommending grants to the organizations and causes they believe will make a difference.
- For individuals and couples with especially large estates, charitable planning also may reduce the federal estate tax ultimately borne by the estate, helping preserve more of the remaining assets for heirs. This consideration applies to relatively few families because the federal estate tax exemption is $15 million per individual in 2026, but when it does apply, it really matters because gifts and bequests to qualified charities generally are deductible in determining the taxable estate. Your attorney, CPA, and financial advisor can help determine whether estate tax planning is relevant to your circumstances.
- Even when estate taxes are not a concern, a charitable bequest can still become one of the most meaningful gifts you make. You may, of course, provide for family members while also supporting the causes and organizations that have mattered throughout your life.
Estate plans are designed to transfer wealth. A charitable legacy has the power to transfer something even more lasting. The Community Foundation would be honored to work with you and your estate planning advisors to arrange charitable bequests, establish a donor-advised or other charitable fund, and build a legacy your family can continue long into the future.
Create your charitable legacy with Berks County Community Foundation today.
Use the email template at the bottom of this post to introduce the Community Foundation to your professional advisors!
The Community Foundation is honored to work with many individuals, families, and businesses who support the causes they love. Their charitable contributions help make Berks County a better place to live. Trusted professional advisors, including attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors, help donors make important decisions about taxes, investments, estate planning, and family wealth.
All of this is wonderful! There’s one more step to philanthropy, however, that is sometimes overlooked: connecting the dots. But what does ‘connecting the dots’ mean? If you are a donor or fund holder at Berks County Community Foundation, or plan to establish a fund, please consider introducing your advisors to the foundation team. A simple introduction can make a tremendous difference in achieving your charitable goals.
How connecting the dots can help:
- Attorneys, CPAs, and wealth managers are experts in many aspects of financial and estate planning. Their work is essential in helping you develop and implement strategies through legal documentation, tax filings, and other technical guidance. Not all advisors, however, are experts in charitable giving.
- The Community Foundation brings to the table specialized knowledge about local philanthropy. This knowledge can include charitable giving strategies, local nonprofit needs, philanthropic tools that may be best suited for your situation. This knowledge can also inform the types of assets you might consider giving to achieve your goals.
- The Community Foundation also stays current on legal, tax, and charitable developments. In turn, we can keep you and your advisors informed about which trends to watch.
- When you establish a fund at the Community Foundation, our team will handle the paperwork and administration. We will manage and distribute the fund to meet your charitable intent. This is often a relief to your advisors and to you!
Collaborative conversations among donors, professional advisors, and the Community Foundation are not reserved for ultra-high-net-worth families. Even straightforward charitable plans can benefit from collaboration between your advisors and the Community Foundation. In many cases, donors discover giving opportunities they might not otherwise have considered. What’s more is that many advisors appreciate the philanthropic specialists who explore strategies that benefit both the donor and the causes they love.
What can you do? A simple email introducing your advisors to the Community Foundation team opens the door to better communication and stronger planning. The Community Foundation is always happy to have a conversation with you and your advisors, and an introduction is critical. Click the button below to access an email template and get the conversation started!
When professionals work together, the result is often more coordinated and impactful. By connecting your advisors with the Community Foundation, you help create a team that can support both your financial goals and your desire to make a lasting difference. We look forward to hearing from you—and meeting your advisors! Thank you for all you do to make our community a better place.
READING, PA (June 4, 2026) – The Innovation Fund of Berks County Community Foundation recently awarded $101,956 to local organizations for projects that will improve environmental health across Berks County. Funded projects include small-scale construction, such as community gardens, educational programs, large-scale planning efforts, and more.
The following projects received funding from the Innovation Fund:
- $8,000 to Berks Agricultural Resource Network for the 2026 Urban Agriculture Bus Tour.
- $8,000 to the Berks County Earth Day Committee of Berks Recycling Coalition for the annual Berks Earth Day event.
- $13,046 to Berks Nature for Cultivating Community: A Garden Initiative.
- $13,860 to Berks Nature for a municipal outreach initiative supporting open space protection, native plant communities, and stormwater best management practices.
- $9,050 to Blue Mountain Eagle Climbing Club and Wildness Park for a forest stewardship plan.
- $10,000 to GoggleWorks Center for the Arts for GoggleWorks Gardens at Laurel Park.
- $15,000 to Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful for a Spanish-language environmental outreach campaign.
- $15,000 to Student Conservation Association for the 2027 Reading Conservation Corps, which will recruit, hire, and train young adults to complete conservation projects across the county while gaining job skills and certifications.
- $10,000 to Widoktadwen Center for Native Knowledge for Adventure Summer Camp, making camp possible for 25 children who might not otherwise be able to attend. The seven-week, inclusive, nature-based program centers on the Seven Grandfather Teachings of Anishinaabe tradition: Love, Respect, Bravery, Humility, Wisdom, Honesty, and Truth.
“The Innovation Fund supports creative projects that can make a meaningful impact,” said Emily Smedley, Environment and Energy Program Officer for Berks County Community Foundation. “Environmental health affects everyone. We all have a role to play and can become responsible stewards of our beautiful, biodiverse region.”
To learn more about The Innovation Fund, visit https://bccf.org/funds/the-innovation-fund/.
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Berks County Community Foundation is a nonprofit corporation that serves as a civic leader for our region by developing, managing and distributing charitable funds aimed at improving the quality of life in Berks County.
Have a question about this fund?
Email Emily Smedley, Environment & Energy Program Officer
The word “philanthropy” comes from Greek roots, meaning, quite simply, a love of humanity.
Philanthropy is a big word—but at its heart, it reflects something very personal: the desire to help others, strengthen community, and make a difference in ways that matter to you.
For some people, philanthropy means supporting a favorite nonprofit year after year. For others, it means volunteering time, responding to urgent needs, or thinking carefully about how to create lasting change. However it shows up, philanthropy is not one-size-fits-all. It’s as unique as the people behind it.
That’s where the Community Foundation comes in.
At the foundation, we believe that everyone’s philanthropic instinct looks different, from person to person. Our role is to help you discover, shape, and act on that instinct in a way that reflects your values, your experiences, and your goals. Whether you already have a clear vision or are just beginning to explore what matters most, we’re here to help you connect the dots.
How exactly does this work? What does it look like in real life to get started with the Community Foundation?
Often, the starting point is simply having a conversation. Here’s what you can expect during your first meeting with a member of the team.
We’ll review your favorite charities.
Together, we’ll take a look at a list of the charities you already support and review each organization to uncover the reasons you love and support each one. This is a crucial starting point because the Community Foundation is here to help you make the most of what you are already doing and then build on that to discover how you can get even more involved.
We’ll chat about your story.
We enjoy hearing from our donors about the experiences that have shaped their lives. As we begin this part of our conversation, we’ll explore questions that help unlock where your charitable passions may lie and why. What challenges have you or your loved ones faced? What opportunities made a difference for you? Often, the causes we care about most are connected to our own journeys. Reflecting on these moments can help clarify where you feel most motivated to give.
We’ll talk about what’s going on in our community.
Which local issues capture your attention or spark a strong emotional response? It might be something you read in the news, a local initiative you hear about, or a cause a friend supports. These moments are often clues pointing toward what matters most to you. The foundation can help provide context for these issues and share information about which organizations are directly addressing the local challenges that top your list.
We’ll connect with your advisors about structure.
As your charitable purposes come into focus, we would welcome the opportunity to join you for a meeting with your estate planning and tax advisors, or even provide information you can share with your advisors about charitable giving structures that might help you achieve your goals. Whether your charitable goals are best served via a donor-advised fund, unrestricted fund, legacy gift, IRA beneficiary designation, or anything in between, the Community Foundation can help implement your charitable intentions in ways that your advisors recommend are best aligned with the rest of your financial plan.
As we take these steps together, remember that you don’t have to have all the answers right away. Philanthropy is a journey, not a destination. Whether you’re ready to establish a fund, looking to deepen your involvement, or simply beginning to think about how you want to give back, the Community Foundation is here to help. Together, we can turn your love of humanity into meaningful, lasting impact—right here in the community we share.
READING, PA (May 11, 2026) – Power of the Purse (POP) in Berks County Fund of Berks County Community Foundation awards grants to programs that break the cycle of poverty by eliminating or addressing barriers for Berks County girls and/or women who want to enter or re-enter the workforce or seek the education they need to do so. The fund’s committee is a women’s giving circle. Members conduct site visits to the nonprofits and organizations that have applied for POP funding.
In May 2026, POP in Berks County approved $73,000 to the following eight nonprofits and organizations:
- Literacy Council
- Hannah’s Hope
- Hope Rescue Mission
- John Paul II Center for Special Learning
- Connections Work
- Helping Harvest
- Opportunity House
- Planned Parenthood Keystone
“Women’s giving circles are an easy way to maximize the giving power of individuals,” says Cindy Milian, Health and Human Services Program Officer of Berks County Community Foundation. “POP in Berks County invests in the futures of local girls and women because the committee understands how pivotal those individuals are in inspiring change and shaping the future of our region.”
Power of the Purse (POP) Fund was established at Berks County Community Foundation in 2012. For more information on POP or establishing your own fund with the Community Foundation, email Molly McCullough Robbins, Vice President for Philanthropic Services, at mollyr@bccf.org.
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Berks County Community Foundation is a nonprofit corporation that serves as a civic leader for our region by developing, managing and distributing charitable funds aimed at improving the quality of life in Berks County.
Many people are not fully aware of the extent to which charitable organizations shape everyday life in our communities.
From social services to education, healthcare, and the arts, nonprofits touch nearly every aspect of quality of life. Americans give hundreds of billions of dollars to charity each year, supporting roughly 1.9 million organizations nationwide. These organizations often become even more essential during periods of economic uncertainty, when demand for services tends to rise just as resources can feel more constrained.
That dynamic is especially relevant as many are watching the markets closely this spring. Even the possibility of a downturn can influence financial decisions, including charitable giving. It is natural to feel more cautious. At the same time, history shows that community needs often increase during challenging economic periods—making it all the more important to stay engaged in philanthropy.
As you think about your charitable giving this year, this may be a good moment to step back and consider not only where you give, but also how you structure your giving for long-term impact. In particular, it is important for donors and fund holders to consider expanding their portfolio of giving to include giving to the Community Foundation itself. This can take several forms, each of which plays a meaningful role.
Unrestricted giving
Some donors choose to support the Community Foundation’s grantmaking and initiatives across generations. This type of support helps ensure that the foundation can continue serving as a trusted resource—connecting donors to causes, responding to emerging needs, and stewarding charitable funds with care and expertise well into the future. It is an investment not only in today’s giving, but also in the long-term strength of the philanthropic infrastructure in our community.
Support for existing funds
Other donors focus on increasing the Community Foundation’s grantmaking resources so that more money can flow from the Community Foundation to nonprofits that are helping those in need, especially when times are tough. Contributions to unrestricted or broadly focused funds allow the foundation’s program team to respond quickly and thoughtfully to the most pressing challenges facing our region. During periods of economic strain, this flexibility can be especially powerful, enabling support to reach the people and organizations that need it most, at the moment it matters most.
A hybrid approach
In many cases, donors adopt a dual strategy—continuing to support favorite organizations directly or through the Community Foundation’s grant programs while also allocating a portion of their giving to the Community Foundation itself or by establishing a new fund of your own. This approach can help balance personal philanthropic interests with broader community impact, creating a more resilient and adaptable giving strategy.
The Community Foundation’s unique role is what makes any or all of these approaches so effective. As a perpetual institution governed by a local board of directors, Berks County Community Foundation is designed to serve the community not just today, but across generations. Our team maintains deep knowledge of local needs, works closely with nonprofit partners, and is positioned to deploy resources where they can do the greatest good over time.
Especially in moments when the future feels uncertain, expanding your portfolio of giving in this way can provide an added layer of confidence. You can continue supporting the causes you care about while also strengthening the Community Foundation’s ability to lead, respond, and make a difference—now and in the years ahead.
We are honored to work alongside you as you consider how your philanthropy can support both immediate needs and lasting impact for our entire community.
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