Ten years ago, two donors and their local contacts had an idea. They wanted to set the Island’s next generation up for success, while dispensing with the high organizational costs of most nonprofits.

That idea became MV Youth, a philanthropic endeavor that over the last decade has given away more than $16 million in scholarships and grants to local students and organizations.

Dan Stanton and Jim Swartz, longtime friends and seasonal residents of the Vineyard, hatched the idea in 2014, based on models that had found success in New York and San Francisco. Instead of requesting large donations from known philanthropists, they would ask a wider net of possible donors to contribute a smaller sum every year for at least four years. The network would then continue to grow as new funders would be brought in every four years.

The money would also flow directly to individuals and organizations with the founders promising to pay all overhead costs.

“People see the money going in, and they see exactly where all the money goes,” Mr. Stanton said.

In the last decade, the money has gone to more than 100 Island high school students to help pay for two and four-year educational programs, as well as dozens of local nonprofits that benefit Island youth.

MV Youth scholarships total about $1 million each year. Local grant recipients have ranged from home-based daycare centers, to Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, the Boys and Girls Club, Little League, Camp Jabberwocky and Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, to name a few.

The organization’s giving is directed by a local advisory board, which oversees the scholarship application process and vets grant applications.

“The local advisory board — we’ve had that since day one,” Mr. Stanton said. “We’ve had seven to 10 people on that board, all of whom live here year-round, with the idea that they are really in touch with the local pulse.”

Nominally, the organization’s trustees, made up of donors, finalize the grant and scholarship decisions made by the advisory board. But Mr. Stanton and Mr. Swartz said the trustees had hardly ever pushed back against the advisory board’s decisions.

“And I don’t think we’ve ever made a grant that a year or two or three down the road we’ve regretted,” Mr. Stanton said.

Mr. Stanton and Mr. Swartz credit the grant program’s success in part to MV Youth’s “last dollar” approach. When an organization applies for an MV Youth grant, they must already have in hand the majority of the funding they need for a particular project. MV Youth grants provide the last amount of funding an organization needs to complete a project.

This means MV Youth ends up funding “effective organizations,” Mr. Swartz said. “If they’ve gotten that far, there’s a proven need for the organization and it’s being well-run.”

In recent years, one of the organization’s biggest granting focuses has been on supporting early childhood development on the Island. In the last five years, $2.6 million in grant money has gone toward improving daycare facilities.

Lindsey Scott, MV Youth’s executive director — and still its only paid employee after 10 years — estimated that the early childhood development grants will open up 141 new daycare slots on the Island. Of those, 81 slots will be in center-based daycares, with an additional 60 slots in home-based programs.

Over the last decade, MV Youth’s donor circle has grown significantly. What began as 40 donors pledging $25,000 each year for four years is now a network of 75 donors, 90 per cent of whom continue to give after their initial four year commitment ends, Ms. Scott said.

This growing number of donors has enabled MV Youth to accommodate the rising costs of a college education.

“The price of a college degree has skyrocketed,” Ms. Scott said. “That really necessitates this kind of support.”

MV Youth has also expanded its scholarship program over the past decade. Initially, the organization offered a handful of scholarships to high school students pursuing education at four-year colleges. Now, MV Youth also offers workforce development grants to students pursuing technical education at two-year schools.

A portion of four-year scholarship are also dedicated to students pursuing degrees in education and health care, hoping to shore up two of the Island’s essential professions, Mr. Stanton and Mr. Swartz said.

“We started off thinking this [would be] a one size fits all deal,” Mr. Stanton said. “It isn’t. And so now instead of just going in one direction, we’re going in three.”

Moving forward, MV Youth hopes to increase its engagement with young Islanders who have graduated or left high school but are unemployed or underemployed.

Mr. Stanton and Mr. Swartz said that one of the keys to MV Youth’s growth has been introducing younger donors to the Island’s philanthropic causes.

“We wanted to draw in the next generation of philanthropists, to help build a bench,” for Island organizations to turn to in the future, Mr. Swartz said.

MV Youth’s transparency and simplicity have helped engage those donors, Ms. Scott said.

“The kind of young, successful, prospective [donor]...is hungry to know, how do I contribute here? Where should this money go?” Ms. Scott said. “We have an extensive selection process to figure out where to direct the money.”

A major contributor to both the creation and success of MV Youth, all three agreed, was the late Ron Rappaport, an Island attorney and the longtime chair of MV Youth’s local advisory board. Mr. Rappaport died unexpectedly in June.

Mr. Swartz said that Mr. Rappaport was the first person he and Mr. Stanton contacted when they began to dream up MV Youth.

“He’s irreplaceable, in terms of the level of connectivity that he had throughout the Island, both with projects and with people.” Mr. Swartz said.

Mr. Rappaport connected Mr. Stanton and Mr. Swartz with Ms. Scott as well as many others who would go on to serve on the advisory board, Mr. Stanton said.

“He was sort of a fourth leg of the chair.... We’re down to a three legged stool now,” Mr. Stanton said.

A fund at MV Youth has been created by Mr. Rappaport’s family in his honor.

Liz Pickman, a career educational consultant, Aquinnah resident and longtime member of the MV Youth board, has been named the next chair of the advisory board.

Ms. Pickman said she was excited to take on the new role.

“We take a big, amorphous mission and we apply that to specific needs, specific people, specific opportunities,” she said.

Ms. Pickman hopes to focus on “fairness, accountability and transparency” as head of the board, ensuring that everyone gets an even shot at MV Youth’s resources.

What was once two friends’ project is now transitioning into an “institution,” Mr. Stanton said.

“There’s a certain optimism that people have for the next generation. There’s a desire to see the next generation do better,” Mr. Stanton said.