CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

Point Foundation (environment)

American nonprofit environmental organization

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ7208026
Source-derived summary

The founding of the nonprofit POINT Foundation was the outcome of a meeting Stewart Brand and Dick Raymond convened in November 1971 in Menlo Park, California. POINT's operational location was soon shifted to Sausalito on San Francisco Bay. POINT was established for the role of distributing funds deriving from profits of the Whole Earth Catalogs to innovative and promising ventures.

The Whole Earth Catalog (WEC), was an American periodical and product catalog. The content was intended to empower readers; a user-review format was employed to introduce products in the Catalog's pages.

The POINT foundation's board members were united by concern for the natural environment. Besides Brand and Raymond, board members included Michael Phillips (financial expert, business consultant, and POINT board's first president), Bill English, who had begun work on the prototype computer mouse in 1963, and Huey Johnson, former western-regional director of the Nature Conservancy. One of POINT's first large grants, in 1972, enabled a group of environmental scientists, activists, and Native Americans to attend the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. Peter Warshall, conservation biologist, watershed expert, and consultant, was among those who served on POINT's board. So was business writer and futurist Paul Hawken.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Point Foundation (environment)” as american nonprofit environmental organization. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Point, Foundation and environment.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1971, 1963, 1972—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Point, Foundation and environment providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Point Foundation (environment)”, the useful work is to connect “american nonprofit environmental organization” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7208026. VIAF identifies the subject as 128977082. The Library of Congress control number is n50071904. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971, 1963 and 1972.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Point Foundation (environment)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Point Foundation (environment) primary sources, Point Foundation (environment) archive and Point research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Point Foundation (environment)”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Point Foundation (environment)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.