The Drop Times and Sponsorship Data

Author: rfay

src/content/blog/sponsorship-data-droptimes.md

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+---
+title: "From a Single Chat to a Live Sponsorship Feed: DDEV's Sponsorship Data Story"
+pubDate: 2026-03-27
+summary: "How a request from TheDropTimes to track DDEV sponsorship data led to a web component, a public data feed, and live sponsor displays across DDEV properties."
+author: Randy Fay
+featureImage:
+  src: /img/blog/2026/03/sponsorship-data.png
+  alt: DDEV sponsorship data displayed across web properties
+categories:
+  - Community
+  - Announcements
+---
+
+<!--
+TODO:
+* So much thanks to Anoop for the support and the inspiration
+* So much thanks to The Drop Times for continuing to promote
+* Banner: The Drop Times banner
+-->
+In January 2025, Anoop John of [TheDropTimes](https://www.thedroptimes.com/) sent a message that sparked something bigger than any of us expected:
+
+> "Happy New Year. I was thinking we could put a live sponsorship tracker for DDEV on TDT. We should ask for people for $5 per month and we need 1000 people to hit the target right? What do you think?"
+
+That single message set off a chain of events that ended with live, auto-updating DDEV sponsor displays on multiple web properties, a public data repository, and a reusable web component—all feeding from a single source of truth.
+
+## The Challenge
+
+DDEV's financial sustainability depends entirely on sponsorships (we have no other income). Communicating that need—and showing progress toward goals—requires getting accurate, up-to-date data in front of people where they already spend time. But manually updating sponsor lists across multiple sites is tedious and error-prone.
+
+What we needed was a data feed that could be consumed anywhere, updated automatically, and displayed consistently.
+
+## The sponsorship-data Repository
+
+The first piece was a public repository: [ddev/sponsorship-data](https://github.com/ddev/sponsorship-data). This repository aggregates sponsorship information from GitHub Sponsors and other sources, and is updated automatically on a daily schedule. The data is available as structured JSON that any site or tool can consume.
+
+The pull request that kicked this off: [ddev/sponsorship-data#5](https://github.com/ddev/sponsorship-data/pull/5).
+
+## Mark Conroy's Web Component
+
+[Mark Conroy](https://mark.ie/) stepped up with a reusable web component that reads from the sponsorship-data feed and renders a live sponsor display. The component lives at [web-components.mark.ie](https://web-components.mark.ie/) and is open source at [markconroy/web-components](https://github.com/markconroy/web-components).
+
+The feature request that started that work: [markconroy/web-components#1](https://github.com/markconroy/web-components/issues/1).
+
+The component makes it trivial to embed a live sponsor list on any site—no backend required, no manual updates.
+
+## Integration into DDEV Web Properties
+
+With the data feed and component in place, we integrated the live sponsor display into ddev.com. The work to add this is tracked in [ddev/ddev.com#339](https://github.com/ddev/ddev.com/issues/339).
+
+Now, when sponsors join or leave, the displays update automatically. No manual edits to site content, no stale lists.
+
+## What `ddev start` Shows
+
+The data feed also powers what users see when they run `ddev start`. The daily update cycle means the sponsor information shown in the CLI is never more than a day old. Users see current sponsors every time they start a project.
+
+## Why This Matters
+
+The sponsorship situation for DDEV is real: the project needs ongoing financial support to continue development and remain free for everyone. Getting that message in front of people—accurately and consistently—helps.
+
+The path from Anoop's January email to live sponsor feeds across multiple properties took a few months of collaboration between community members who cared. That's how open-source sustainability work actually gets done.
+
+If you use DDEV and find it valuable, consider sponsoring at [github.com/sponsors/ddev](https://github.com/sponsors/ddev). Even $5/month adds up when enough people participate.