From Blender’s post:

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.

To use your metaphor, it sounds like they took the money as one-time gift instead of ongoing rent payments.

As far as generative AI:

Most importantly, we need to urgently tackle the topic and clearly define how Blender is positioned in regards to generative AI technologies when it comes to the product, software development, documentation, and other activities. Discussions will happen in the public blender.org channels, based on drafts by the Blender team.

Blender is a tool for artists and creators, it’s made by humans for humans. No generative AI functionality is currently available or planned to be integrated in Blender.

And with Artist Profile Protection (currently in beta), artists now have greater control over what appears on their profile, which helps to ensure the music you see is coming from them.

From the Artist Profile Protection link:

Music has been landing on the wrong artist pages across streaming services, and the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made the problem worse. That’s not the experience we want artists to have on Spotify, and that’s why we’ve made protecting artist identity a top priority for 2026. Today, we’re announcing a first-of-its-kind solution to a problem that’s affected streaming for years.

How the hell is that something that is only in beta in 2026 and not a standard feature? It’s currently optional, but they better automatically opt in verified “No AI” artists if the label is going to be worth anything. There should not be AI-generated songs from randos getting attached to a “No AI” artist.