Update DDEV Foundation sponsorship levels

[ultimike]

Working with the existing sponsorship levels and some ideas from myself and others (including help from Claude), I'd like to propose this updated list of sponsorship levels and benefits (in the form of a "sponsorship prospectus".)

This sponsorship prospectus can be used as a PDF sent directly to potential contributors. The updated sponsorship levels will be one of the main focuses of the soon-to-be-updated sponsor home page (#631).

This task is a prerequisite for #631

Updated Sponsorship Prospectus here

---

# DDEV Foundation Sponsorship Prospectus

## What is DDEV?

DDEV is the open-source local development environment trusted by over 19,000 active developers worldwide. It makes local web development reliable, fast, and consistent for PHP, JavaScript, and HTML developers — whether they're working with Drupal, WordPress, Laravel, TYPO3, Craft CMS, Magento, or any other web platform.

Since its origins in 2016, DDEV has grown into a vital piece of infrastructure for thousands of development teams, agencies, and individual developers. With 3,600+ GitHub stars, 222 releases, 399 contributors, and a vibrant community on Discord, DDEV is one of the most actively maintained and widely adopted local development tools in the open-source ecosystem.

## The DDEV Foundation

The DDEV Foundation is a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation registered in Colorado. It serves as the organizational home for the DDEV project — owning the infrastructure, managing funds, and ensuring the project's long-term sustainability through community governance and a Board of Directors.

The Foundation's funds go directly toward infrastructure costs and paying DDEV's maintainers. There are no shareholders, no venture capital expectations, and no hidden agendas. Every dollar of sponsorship goes toward making DDEV better for the developers who depend on it.

## Why Recurring Monthly Sponsorship Matters

Open-source projects like DDEV face a fundamental challenge: the software is free, but building and maintaining it is not. DDEV's two full-time maintainers — Randy Fay and Stas Zhuk — dedicate their professional lives to keeping DDEV reliable, secure, and constantly improving. That work requires sustainable, predictable funding.

Recurring monthly sponsorships are the lifeblood of the DDEV project. One-time donations are appreciated, but predictable monthly funding is what allows the Foundation to make real commitments — keeping maintainers Randy Fay and Stas Zhuk focused full-time on DDEV instead of splitting their attention with outside work.

The Foundation's goal is $12,000/month to fully fund both maintainers. Whether you contribute $5/month or $1,000/month, every recurring sponsorship brings the project closer to full sustainability. A strong base of recurring sponsors also signals to the broader community that DDEV is a healthy, well-supported project that organizations can safely depend on for years to come.

## Sponsorship Levels

- Each tier includes all benefits of lower tiers.
- Annual or one-time contributions are also welcome — the amount divided by 12 determines your tier level and benefits (e.g., a €1,020 / $1,200 annual contribution qualifies for the Sustainer tier at €85 / $100 per month).

### ☕ Supporter — €5 / $5 per month

For the cost of a monthly coffee, you can help make DDEV sustainable. Every individual sponsor counts toward our goal and sends a powerful message of community support.

- A heartfelt thank-you from the DDEV team
- Public Sponsor achievement on your GitHub profile

### 🌱 Backer — €10 / $10 per month

A meaningful step up that helps fund the day-to-day work of maintaining DDEV.
- Sponsor badge on your GitHub profile

### 🔧 Builder — €20 / $25 per month

Show your commitment to the tools you use every day.

> 🎓 Universities & educational institutions: A one-time annual contribution of €340 / $400 qualifies for this tier — perfect for departments with limited tooling budgets, and multiple departments at the same institution can each sponsor independently.

- Sponsor badge on your GitHub profile

### 📋 Advocate — €45 / $50 per month

Your name alongside the project you help sustain.

- Your name in the DDEV README

### 🏢 Sustainer — €85 / $100 per month

Ideal for agencies and organizations that rely on DDEV across their teams.

- Your logo and link in the DDEV README

### 🌟 Featured Sponsor — €175 / $200 per month

Increased visibility for organizations invested in DDEV's future.

~- Your logo and link on ddev.com/support-ddev and github.com/sponsors/ddev in the "Featured Sponsors" section

• Have your bug reports prioritized~

### 💎 Champion — €425 / $500 per month

Prominent recognition across DDEV's daily touchpoints with developers.

- DDEV Tip of the Day names you and thanks you — your organization's name seen by thousands of developers every day in the terminal
- Sponsor spotlight blog post on ddev.com — a profile of your organization and how you use DDEV

### 🏆 Keystone Sponsor — €850 / $1,000 per month

The highest level of partnership with the DDEV project.

- We'll join your company chat app (Slack, Teams, etc.) for direct help and support
- Direct line to the maintainers for your team's DDEV questions

## How to Sponsor

There are three convenient ways to sponsor the DDEV Foundation:

GitHub Sponsors — Perfect for individuals and organizations who prefer the simplicity of GitHub's built-in sponsorship platform. 100% of personal sponsorships go directly to the Foundation (GitHub charges no fees for personal accounts).
→ github.com/sponsors/ddev

PayPal — A quick and easy option for one-time or recurring contributions.
→ Donate via PayPal

Direct Billing — Many organizations prefer direct invoicing. The Foundation accepts ACH, Wise, bank transfer, IBAN, SWIFT, and checks. We'll work with your finance department to make it easy.
→ ddev.com/contact

As a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit, sponsorships to the DDEV Foundation may be tax-deductible. Please consult your tax advisor.

## Your Sponsorship Makes a Difference

The DDEV Foundation has no other source of income besides sponsorships. There are no enterprise licenses, no premium tiers of the software, and no paywalled features. DDEV is free for everyone — and your sponsorship keeps it that way.

---

For questions about sponsorship, custom arrangements, or to discuss how your organization can support DDEV, please contact us at ddev.com/contact.

Learn more about the DDEV Foundation at ddev.com/foundation.

[highermath]

Do we really need 8 sponsorship levels?

[rfay]

We have been saying $100/month == "Featured", meaning logo on ddev.com + github.com/ddev/ddev for a lot of years, so I'd be biased to keep the name "featured" for the $100/month-ish level. It's been a good aspiration level for a number of organizations (and one individual!)

Do we really need 8 sponsorship levels?

I agree with this sentiment. It seems like since people can choose their own level (and they know it perfectly well) we just want to affect their aspiration. The $100/$500/$1000 levels has been mostly the only aspiration levels, and just the two at $1000 level. A fair number of people thing $25 is good. I'd be for 4 levels like this, with people knowing they can do exactly what they want to do.

Note: Right now, people have a hard time doing anything on github.com/sponsors/ddev because it errors with a 500 and has for some weeks. We have an open ticket about this, and they have responded, but they said "seems fine to me". But mostly it seems fine to nobody. Our subscriptions via GitHub have dropped off a bit in the last few weeks.

[stasadev]

Note: Right now, people have a hard time doing anything on github.com/sponsors/ddev because it errors with a 500 and has for some weeks. We have an open ticket about this, and they have responded, but they said "seems fine to me". But mostly it seems fine to nobody. Our subscriptions via GitHub have dropped off a bit in the last few weeks.

I removed our $12,000 goal from the Sponsors page - it was the reason why it was broken in the first place.

The request for activeGoal.percentComplete often failed with 502 Bad Gateway:

curl --no-progress-meter -v -H "Authorization: bearer $GH_TOKEN" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"query": "{ organization(login: \"ddev\") { sponsorsListing { activeGoal { percentComplete } } } }"}' \
    https://api.github.com/graphql 2>&1 | grep -E "< HTTP|percentComplete|Bad Gateway"

< HTTP/2 502
<head><title>502 Bad Gateway</title></head>
<center><h1>502 Bad Gateway</h1></center>

# and only sometimes
< HTTP/2 200
{"data":{"organization":{"sponsorsListing":{"activeGoal":{"percentComplete":34}}}}}

I guess we just reached too many sponsors, which caused GraphQL errors during the calculation.

[mabolek]

I'm with @highermath and @rfay that fewer sponsorship levels is better.

I would also lead with the "Why Recurring Monthly Sponsorship Matters" section. If people don't know what DDEV is, they're unlikely to sponsor anyway.

For developers pitching sponsorship to their managers, I would develop a separate letter template, so we can lead with the person's personal message, not with just an attached PDF.

@ultimike I think the text can be edited for brevity and even clearer messaging in some places. I'd be happy to help. Is that something I should do in a Google doc?

[ultimike]

@mabolek Sure, feel free to start a Google Doc with your changes and then share the URL. I'm cool with fewer levels as well.

@stasadev thanks for fixing up github.com/sponsors/ddev - too bad it was our widget that was the issue :(

thanks,
-mike

[bmack]

My two cents:

When sponsoring DDEV (unlike other things such a Drupal event or so), people don't do it solely for the visibility, it's actually support + dedication. So I'd like at what people have to give, and divide this in groups.

• Freelancer: 50 or 100 Euros / month
• Small agencies: 250 or 500 Euros / month
• Top tier 1000 or 2000 Euros / month

maybe 4 tiers. But not more than that - otherwise I'm with @mabolek

[stasadev]

thanks for fixing up github.com/sponsors/ddev - too bad it was our widget that was the issue :(

@ultimike, that widget (sponsorship goal) was provided by GitHub and only displayed the financial data from GitHub itself.

I wonder why they made the whole page dependent on it, which is what caused the problem for us.

I replaced it with a new daily updated SVG and added it to https://github.com/sponsors/ddev

In the end, we got consolidated info across all our sponsorship banners.

[ultimike]

@stasadev Ah - gotcha. Regardless, thanks for solving the issue.

Big +1 for new new .svg - that's a much better solution as it takes into account all of our funding channels!

thanks,
-mike

[ultimike]

I went ahead and created a new sponsorship-levels.md in the sponsorship-data repository (I should have done that in the first place - sorry.) Also - this means that this issue is in a different repo than the doc we're discussing. My bad.

Anyway, I think I've incorporated all of the suggestions above - please let me know what you think!

thanks,
-mike

[ultimike]

Whelp, no comments in 2 weeks (other than the 👍 from Stas!) so I think we're ready to publish.

Where are all the places I should update with this new info?

1. https://github.com/sponsors/ddev
2. Create a new "Financial sponsor benefits" page on the site and link from https://ddev.com/support-ddev/? If so, what is the process for creating a new page?
3. Where should the canonical list of sponsorship levels live?
4. After thinking about it for a bit, I don't think we need a PDF version, but if others disagree...
5. Anywhere else?

-mike

[rfay]

I think the list should be adapted from

• Updated sponsorship prospectus for DDEV project sponsorship-data#42

and should probably go into a new page on ddev.com (pretty easy, it's a *.astro, or a redirect, more than one way)

But IMO https://ddev.com/support-ddev/ is too unfocused at this point, so trimming it to something quite short and focused and including this info would be possible.