Does the core team realize that by not responding or even acknowledging bug reports and feature requests, they are killing the goose that lays the golden egg?

People who care enough and feel acknowledged as part of the community enough to keep investing their time and effort to help improve the product.

I have a whole bunch of issues with Openfund data reporting being grossly incorrect. I either have assumed they already know or it's not their priority and have not reported it. I understand NOT being able to respond to each bug report. But, at least once the issue gets worked on and resolved, go back to your slack and have the Dev credit the person or persons who first reported it.