Presenter

Mason Jay Blacher

President, Mason Jay Blacher & Associates

Mason Blacher served as Director of Major Gifts at Stanford University, where he directed the full range of individual giving programs for the Graduate School of Business.  He is especially regarded for his work in the management of large-gift solicitations -- guiding organizations and volunteers to seek six- and seven-figure gifts and larger, even from first-time donors, developing strategies to increase capital campaign goals beyond expectations, providing interim vice presidential leadership to institutions with fundraising problems, and coaching and mentorship of those who are new to fundraising.

Blacher previously served Dominican College (now University) of San Rafael, California as Assistant Dean and later as Director of Public Information.  He has a B. A. in classics and an M. A. in college administration from Stanford.  Blacher cofounded the Stanford Savoyards and served as its first producer, revived the Ram’s Head student drama society, and served on the University Committee on Public Events; he resurrected both the defunct Quad yearbook and Chaparral humor magazine.  Later, he founded the Stanford Club of Marin, serving as its first President; was Vice President of Big Brothers of Marin; and wrote theater reviews for three Bay Area newspapers.

 Mr. Blacher chaired the Planned Giving Council of Washington Gives, the state’s “Give Five” affiliate, and has been a member of the Washington Planned Giving Council, and Northwest Development Officers Association (NDOA).  He has spoken on Board Recruitment and Capital Campaigns at the Presidents Institute of the Council on Independent Colleges (CIC), written in numerous periodicals on major and planned giving.  He has served on the Board, Executive Committee, and Marketing Committee (chair), for the Association of Washington Business (AWB), the statewide chamber of commerce.  He is Past-President of his Rotary Club and a member of numerous private clubs.

Performing arts clients have included the Seattle Symphony, Vancouver (B.C.) Symphony, San Jose Symphony, and Alabama Symphony; also the San Francisco Opera, Portland Opera, and Opera America.  In both Seattle and Birmingham, Alabama, he first identified and courted the donors who would eventually make naming gifts of symphony halls.  He raised endowment funds for the San Francisco Opera, Portland Opera, and San Jose Symphony Foundation and major underwriting gifts for the Salzburg (Austria) Festival.

Fine and visual arts clients have ranged from the B. Gerald Cantor Rodin Sculpture Garden at Stanford, working to expand the named donor’s interest in later naming the entire Stanford University Museum of Art; to the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and Seattle’s Center on Contemporary Art and Tacoma’s Museum of Glass; to endowing the Book Art program at Mills College in Oakland.