The Blender Foundation

    The Blender Foundation is an independent, non-profit public benefit corporation. The goals of the Blender Foundation include the establishment of services for users and developers and the maintenance of the animation program Blender. These goals also include a manner of establishing funding to serve the foundation’s goals and pay for expenses. By completing these goals, the Blender Foundation is able to give the worldwide Internet community a way to create and explore 3D technology.

    The Blender Foundation is centered in Amsterdam in the Netherlands at the Amsterdam Blender Institute. Ton Roosendaal, the Blender Foundation’s chairman, and a small staff work full-time on Blender related projects, which is made possible by revenue created from an e-shop and from publishing literature on Blender. The e-shop, which is also known as the Blender Store, includes a variety of items, such as t-shirts, books about Blender, training workshop DVDs, DVDs of creations made with Blender, tickets to conferences, and much more. 

The Blender Institute  

    The overwhelming success of the first movie project made by the Blender Foundation inspired Ton Roosendaal to establish the “Blender Institute” which includes a permanent office and studio to more efficiently organize projects. These projects involve the coordination and facilitation of Open Projects related to 3D movies, gamers or visual effects. The timeline for the Blender Institute is from 2007-2012 and will focus on temporary projects and open projects. This space is also reserved for workshops and training.

(Below) A screenshot from an animation using Blender from the Digital Knitting Circle.