ROCKLAND – Phillip Conkling discovered a vanishing breed off the Maine coast when he moved to the state a generation ago: year-round island communities struggling to survive.

A hundred years earlier, some 300 islands off the coast supported year-round communities. That had dwindled to just 15 by 1984.

So Conkling, a writer and forestry expert, together with friend Peter Ralston, a photographer, formed the Island Institute, a nonprofit entity whose mission is to give a boost to those island communities, as well as to the working-waterfront towns on which the people of those Maine islands rely.

On Friday, the nonprofit said it was marking its 20th anniversary by launching an ambitious bid to create nearly $20 million in endowments and by fine-tuning its work:

It wants to raise $10 million to $14 million for its Peace Corps-like Island Fellows program; $3 million to $6 million for its Sustainable Communities Fund; and $3.5 million to $5 million for the Working Waterfront newspaper and related activities.

Conkling, 55, and Ralston, 54, concede that they have been considering what will happen with their eventual retirement from actively running the operation, which has grown to a $2.5 million operating budget and employs 28 people full time.

The institute has hired a chief operating officer, Bart Morrison, who will succeed Conkling in a year or so, when the fund raising is complete. Conkling and Ralston will stay on in consulting roles, handling long-term planning.

“It’s a good time to say, ‘What worked?'” Conkling said. “We’ve done many things, but what are we going to do in the future?”

Two recent examples he cites:

. Helping North Haven raise $3 million for a community arts center.

. In 1999, helping Frenchboro block development of half the island into private lots.

In anticipation of developing a “more mature organizational structure,” Conkling said, the institute’s trustees conducted extensive surveys and interviews of islanders and summer residents, who are often donors to the institute.

They discovered three activities that people seem to value:

. The Island Fellows program, in which skilled young people work for a year or more on various projects on-island.

. The Working Waterfront newspaper, published by the Island Institute and circulated to 45,000 readers.

Various programs under a “sustainable communities” heading, including scholarships for island high school graduates for college and job training.

The funds raised are to ensure that the three-pronged approach continues for the next 20 years.

In the surveys, Conkling said, “There was overwhelming support for the Island Fellows program.” Some 35 Fellows have tackled various island tasks over the past five years, “and 80 percent have been supremely successful,” he said.

“Fellows are there for a full year, and in half the cases, for two years,” if the project they are working on is renewed.

Fellows work in fish co-ops, schools, conduct marine resource research and complete GIS mapping, Conkling said. On North Haven, for example, a woman is managing the island’s community and arts center, which was built with help from the institute.

Communities apply to the institute for help with a particular concern that might be addressed by having someone on the island.

“Our job is to match the hard skills … with the needs the community has articulated,” Conkling said.

Many island residents are overcommitted to schools, libraries, land trusts and other groups, and so can’t dedicate time to an ongoing project.

“They have plenty of vision,” he said, “but there just aren’t enough hours in the day.” The Island Fellows program bridges that gap.

Islanders have been wary of the Island Institute, he said, as they would be about any mainland-based organization aiming to “save” them. And since wealthy summer residents are among the largest donors, islanders have been known to question the institute’s agenda.

The Fellows program, Conkling said, “goes a long way toward slaying that dragon,” by having “an island-directed agenda.”

The Working Waterfront, launched in 1993, and overseen by longtime journalist David Platt, is mailed to all island box holders.

“The paper has high credibility up and down the coast and on the islands,” Conkling said. With an endowment, the plan is to increase publication from once a month to twice a month.

In addition to the newspaper, the institute wants to preserve the few acres left of protected, deep-water, vehicle-accessible harbors which support maritime business. Though some tax breaks have been proposed by the state Legislature, Conkling said, the institute believes success lies in creating “town-by-town strategies.”

Under the catchall heading Sustainable Communities Fund, the institute will continue offering scholarships to island high school graduates. Last year, about $50,000 was available, and two-thirds of the scholarships went for college, with a third going toward training.

Also part of this fund is the Island Initiatives Fund, which makes small grants to island nonprofits, which in turn leverage other larger funds. The grants have helped pay for telephone lines to an elder care center, among other things, Conkling said.