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:
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$30,000/yr for unrestricted financial contributions (e.g., donations)
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$60,000/yr for financial contributions for a particular purpose (e.g., grants)
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$100,000/yr for in-kind contributions (e.g., time for employees to contribute)
We define support being active as:
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for a one-off donation: it was received within the previous 12 months,
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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:
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a small logo displayed on the front page of the Matplotlib website
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prominent logo placement on https://matplotlib.org/about/
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logos displayed in talks about Matplotlib by maintainers
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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), 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 (https://matplotlib.org/goverance/funding/, 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.