Legacy income has continued to flatline, but interest in the potential of in-memoriam giving has prompted plans for measuring and predicting the size of the market.

The Legacy Bulletin, released yesterday, shows that legacy income to charities in the year ending March 2012 fell by 0.6 per cent on the previous year. The 53 charities which form the benchmarking Legacy Monitor consortium together raised £977m over the last year, still 3.7 per cent lower than income at the peak of the market, before the global financial crash.

But while Legacy Foresight predicted that legacy income will remain flat for some time yet, the recent case of Claire Squires (pictured), who died while competing in the London Marathon and whose JustGiving page has gone on to raise over £1m, has highlighted the potential for in-memoriam giving.

A consortium of 31 charities has been set up and will soon be establishing benchmarks for in-memoriam giving and funding research into what kind of in-memoriam products the public is likely to respond to.

The Institute of Fundraising's special interest group on legacy marketing and in-memoriam giving, meanwhile, has also floated the idea a national day of remembrance, in which people are encouraged to give in memory of their dead loved ones. Charities have been discussing the viability of such a day and are now gauging sector support for the idea.