Calling it a “complete break” with the past, Island Affordable Housing Fund executive director T. Ewell Hopkins this week revealed sweeping changes for the organization, from enormous board turnover, to the abandonment of its gala summer fund-raising events, to a refusal to take on new debt or break ground on projects without substantial money in the bank.

The changes come as the fund’s sister organization, the nonprofit Island Housing Trust, also is reviewing its dual roles as groundlease holder and developer. On Tuesday the trust will hold a lottery among 21 applicants for eight new homes at 250 State Road in West Tisbury, the culmination of a project begun in 2004. That is soon to be followed by a lottery for four new homes off Lambert’s Cove Road in Tisbury. But trust director Philippe Jordi said the trust would not likely be able to do developments of that size and scope in the current economic squeeze.

“We’re working with the towns, trying to find the right emphasis between rental and ownership opportunities,” Mr. Jordi said, noting the need for affordable housing was ongoing, as evidenced by the strong applicant pool for 250 State Road, which includes teachers, hospital, library and community workers.

Both the trust and the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority’s rental assistance program have been sustained by the housing fund, a nonprofit devoted to raising money for affordable housing. The fund’s financial fault lines were made manifest when last fall it could not meet its commitment to the rental program, shortly after the departure of its previous director, Patrick Manning. Towns and donors have filled the gap month by month so far, while the program appeals for ongoing town funding for the next financial year.

The Island Housing Trust also is examining its governance, through a committee formed this week and headed by Dukes County Superior Court’s Clerk of the Courts Joseph E. Solitto Jr. which is set to offer its recommendations by the end of May. The committee follows criticism of board members for potential conflicts of interest; Mr. Jordi said although there has been no impropriety, the review was a positive response to those concerns.

The trust will take questions from the public at its annual general meeting on Tuesday at 6 p.m., immediately after the lottery.

Mr. Hopkins said that the fund appointed a new chairman, longtime builder John Early, who resigned from the board of the Island Housing Trust to take up the chairmanship on Wednesday night. “The relationship is evolving,” Mr. Hopkins said of the fund and the trust. “It will change if it has not already.”

The two groups will no longer share board members, Mr. Hopkins said, and there will be term limits for board members and office holders at the fund.

In addition to the previously announced resignations of fund chairman Robert Wheeler and vice chairman Candace daRosa, Mr. Hopkins this week accepted the resignations of Patrick Ahearn, Annie Bradshaw and Fred Mascolo.

Earlier this month, Mr. Hopkins became a staff of one, when the fund’s administrative and development staff members were laid off. Board members and others are helping out in the office on a volunteer basis.

No one is planning the summer telethon, which last year was reported to have raised a million dollars but cost the fund tens of thousands of dollars. “It’s not responsible for us to invest a lot of money up front [to hold fund-raising events],” Mr. Hopkins said. “Whose money are we going to bet on getting a better return?”

He was open to donors underwriting social fund-raising events, and he expected cocktail parties, phoning blitzes and other “non-event events” would take place.

“If someone wants to hold a Houses on the Move type of dinner, we welcome that,” he said, referring to successful private home dinner party fund-raisers held years ago. “But the key for us is to be fiscally responsible.”

Mr. Hopkins, who has been in the job since October, also said the fund in future would not take on new debt but rather put off ground-breaking on new projects until a “responsible” amount of money in the bank.

“We’ve got in trouble in the past, saying yes to everything,” Mr. Hopkins said, noting there was no shortage of need nor of worthy projects for Island youth, elderly and low income residents.

“We need fiscal due diligence,” he said. “And it gets tough: people put their heart and soul into these proposals, and you want to see every qualified project get off the ground.”

The fund’s bottom line has been weighed down by servicing debt, notably on the million-dollar purchase of the historic Denniston House for the Bradley Square mixed-use affordable housing project that is now on ice, and on a home in the Jenney Way affordable housing development which, as a condition of its permit, had to be sold at market rates but languished on the market.

“In future we are not going to take on a mortgage for a non-producing piece of property,” he said, though he was optimistic that the Bradley Square project, “which has a whole lot of potential,” could come to fruition.

The NAACP has taken the lead on Bradley Square fund-raising, aiming to retire that debt for the fund by the end of the summer.

Meanwhile the fund has accepted a $400,000 offer on the Jenney Way house, leaving it with about a $60,000 loss to pay off. But there had been few offers, and in consultation with its bankers and lawyers, the fund agreed to the sale. There will be no closing costs, as the real estate agent, lawyers and others are foregoing their fee “to see someone in that home,” Mr. Hopkins said.

The fund also owes about $80,000 on the 250 State Road project

“We are not starting any new project until we have a responsible percentage in the bank,” Mr. Hopkins said. The fund would try to help projects get defined and designed, then try to rally support to get donations before groundbreaking.

He said his priority was to design and build a business model that is informative and educational as well as rasing money. As opposed to an emotional, spiritual pitch, his would be much more of an intellectual one, saying he was “absolutely sure [there is] phenomenal support” in the community for the cause of affordable housing.

“We are redefining our approach to the market,” he said. “Dire times bring on innovation.”