Upcoming Blender Development Fund and AI Policies
The Blender Foundation has revised its agreement with Anthropic, accepting their contribution as a one-time donation rather than a Corporate Patron membership in the Blender Development Fund. This decision follows community concerns about engagement with AI companies and a desire for more transparent decision-making. The Foundation reaffirmed that Blender remains a human-driven tool with no plans to integrate generative AI functionality.
- ▪Anthropic joined the Blender Development Fund as a Corporate Patron, prompting community concerns.
- ▪The Blender Foundation decided to accept Anthropic's contribution as a singular donation, not a membership.
- ▪No generative AI features are currently available or planned for integration in Blender.
- ▪The Foundation is strengthening its donation acceptance processes in line with its Funding Policy.
- ▪Discussions about Blender's position on generative AI will occur publicly on blender.org channels.
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Upcoming Blender Development Fund and AI Policies May 1st, 2026 News Francesco Siddi Recently, we announced that Anthropic was joining the Blender Development Fund as a Corporate Patron member. Since then, we’ve heard concerns from the community around how we engage with any AI company. We should have opened up more conversation and perspectives from contributors before making this decision, and for that we are sorry. After an in-depth discussion with the team and several community contributors, we have decided to receive the funds as a singular donation instead of a Development Fund membership, similar to how other open source organizations have handled such contributions. Anthropic has been informed and supports this decision.
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