# How Matplotlib will acknowledge financial support
There will be two different ways to acknowledge financial and in-kind support:
one to recognize significant active support, and another one to recognize
support received in the past and smaller amounts of support.
Entities who fall under "significant active supporter" we'll call Sponsor. The
minimum level of support given to Matplotlib to be considered a Sponsor are:
- \$30,000/yr for unrestricted financial contributions (e.g., donations)
- \$60,000/yr for financial contributions for a particular purpose
(e.g., grants)
- \$100,000/yr for in-kind contributions (e.g., time for employees to
contribute)
We define support being active as:
- for a one-off donation: it was received within the previous 12
months,
- for recurring or financial or in-kind contributions: they should be
ongoing.
After support moves from "active" to "inactive" status, the acknowledgement
will be left in its place for at least another 6 months. If appropriate, the
funding team can discuss opportunities for renewal with the sponsor. After
those 6 months, acknowledgement may be moved to the historical overview. The
exact timing of this move is at the discretion of the funding team, because
there may be reasons to keep it in the more prominent place for longer.
The rationale for the above funding levels is that unrestricted financial
contributions are typically the most valuable for the project, and the hardest
to obtain. The opposite is true for in-kind contributions. The dollar value of
the levels also reflect that Matplotlib's needs have grown to the point where
we need multiple paid developers in order to effectively support our user base
and continue to move the project forward. Financial support at or above these
levels is needed to be able to make a significant difference.
Sponsors will get acknowledged through:
- a small logo displayed on the front page of the Matplotlib website
- prominent logo placement on
- logos displayed in talks about Matplotlib by maintainers
- announcements of the sponsorship on the Matplotlib mailing list and the
matplotlib Twitter account
In addition to Sponsors, we already have the concept of Institutional Partner
(defined in Matplotlib's [governance
document](https://github.com/matplotlib/governance/goverance.md)), for entities
who employ a Matplotlib maintainer and let them work on Matplotlib as part of
their official duties. Institutional Partners get the same benefits as
Sponsors, in addition to what is specified in the Matplotlib governance
document.
Finally, a page on the website (,
linked from the About page) will acknowledge all current and previous sponsors,
partners, and any other entities and individuals who provided \$5,000 or more
of financial or in-kind support. This page will include relevant details of
support (dates, amounts, names, and purpose); no logos will be used on this
page. The rationale for the \$5,000 minimum level is to keep the amount of work
maintaining the page reasonable; the level is the equivalent of, e.g., one GSoC
or a person-week's worth of engineering time in a Western country, which seems
like a reasonable lower limit.