Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello-

I am new to my role as Marketing & Philanthropy Director, but have noticed many tributes, plaques, sponsorships or areas, etc over my past four years at our shelter that I always wondered about. 

In the last year, a colleague has spent time at one of our two locations putting together a thorough list of all tribute areas, monitoring when they were paid, etc. These areas did not have parameters set to them when the initial capital campaign was run for this second facility. These tribute pieces and sponsorship areas range from benches, to horse stalls to gardens and large arena signage. As the benches begin to age in harsh winters, we are starting to realize we should potentially put a time "limit" on some of these pieces to avoid future costs of maintenance, or the potential to replace these items and give others a chance to have a piece on the property. 

Second piece here - we have a main campus that we have pieces no one has record of, or very minimal details on those listed as the sponsors. Think - so long ago we didn't have a donor database, or those gifting these did not keep any records at all.

What type of parameters have you set or seen for these types of pieces? I am looking for advice and insight on how to go about the potential replacement, or re-sponsorship of these areas. Some of these pieces are 10+ years old. Eventually, we will need to redo these areas and I want to start to process now to ensure we aren't removing anyone who will become offended. Do I need to assume every person was told this was infinite, make phone calls to those still living, or what other ways have you gone about these situations?

Appreciate any information you can share, including your current tributes informational pieces, current tribute tiles or plaques in your facility, or anything else you have learned from your ventures in this area.