The really quick turn around on tickets and pull requests is largely thanks to the Django Fellow, who is paid to manage the community. The last two or three releases have been on time because of the Fellow. The Fellow is funded via Django Software Foundation fundraising activities.
If your company is deriving financial benefit from using Django, consider asking your company to sponsor the fellowship program, so that we can ensure that bugs are getting fixed, releases are happening on time, and security releases are being processed as a priority.
(Disclaimer: core member).