An Interreg project counts its partner organisations as an output (RCO 87). What it may report as a result is narrower: the partners that still cooperate after the project has ended, backed by a formal agreement. Brokerage programmes can apply the same logic to the organisations they bring together. That is the logic of the Interreg result indicator RCR 84, set out in the EU’s regional development regulation for 2021 to 2027. Many programme teams only work out what this means in the final quarter, when the agreements should already be in a folder.
Reporting to funders is the work of turning events into evidence of change. A funder pays for brokerage events, partnering days and community platforms as a means to an end. What it wants to see is what changed for the companies, research institutes and public bodies you brought together. This guide shows you which numbers belong in a funder report, how to collect them across a programme that runs for several years, what counts as proof, and where data protection sets the limits.
Plan the evidence you will need before registration opens. That lets you collect the relevant information throughout the programme and schedule follow-ups in time for reporting deadlines.
What funders ask for: outputs, results and impact
The deadline problem starts with vocabulary. EU cohesion policy defines two kinds of indicator in its common provisions regulation. An output indicator measures “the specific deliverables of the intervention”. A result indicator measures “the effects of the interventions supported, with particular reference to the direct addressees” (Regulation (EU) 2021/1060, Article 2). National funders use different words, but they ask the same two questions: what did you deliver, and what changed for the people you served?
Impact is the third level. It describes the longer-term change in a region or sector, such as new products, jobs or investment. You rarely prove it alone. The funder’s own evaluation usually does that, using your data as one input.
| Level | What it measures | Example from a brokerage programme | Who usually reports it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Output | What the programme delivered | 3 brokerage events, 420 organisations registered, 610 meetings held | You, from event and platform data |
| Result | What changed for participants | 38 joint funding applications, 12 signed cooperation agreements | You, from follow-ups and documents |
| Impact | Longer-term change in the region or sector | New products, jobs, private investment | The funder’s evaluation, with your data |
The figures in the table are an illustration, not a benchmark.
Picture the programme manager of a regional innovation cluster with three years of public funding. Her team runs two brokerage days a year and an online community for 400 member organisations. At every review, the project officer at the funding agency asks one question: what came out of it? Her attendance figures answer a different question.
Meetings are outputs. Cooperation is the result.
Why a full room does not prove anything
The gap between those two levels is where most reports lose credibility. A meeting count shows that you delivered the format. A satisfaction score shows that people liked it. Neither shows that anything changed afterwards.
The second difficulty is time. A joint funding application often follows months after the first meeting, and a cooperation agreement sometimes only after the project has ended. Interreg Central Europe, one of the EU’s transnational programmes, measures RCR 84 “upon project finalisation or submission of the last joint activity report (3 months after the project end)”. The agreement may be signed during the project or shortly afterwards, and the reported value may never exceed the number of organisations that cooperated in the project (Interreg Central Europe, indicator fiches, 2023). If you only start collecting at project end, those three months are all you have left.
Inside a single event, the funnel in our KPI framework for B2B event matchmaking tells you whether the matchmaking itself worked, from profile to follow-up. A funder report sits one level higher. It adds several events together and asks what happened in the months after them.
The reporting chain: from registration to signed agreement
That higher level only works if every step feeds the next. The chain below is the minimum for a programme that runs brokerage events or a partnering platform over several years.
Six steps from registration to a reportable result
- Registration Record the baseline Capture organisation type, country, sector and what each organisation is looking for. Tell participants you will follow up.
- Before Requests and acceptances Log who asked whom for a meeting and which requests were accepted.
- Event day Count meetings held Record meetings that took place, confirmed at the table or by check-in, not meetings booked.
- +3 months First follow-up Ask briefly whether a second contact, an offer or a joint application followed, and from which meeting.
- +12 months Second follow-up Ask about agreements, projects and contracts. Collect the documents that prove them.
- Report Aggregate and explain Add up the period, compare it with your targets and explain every deviation in plain words.
At step three, distinguish carefully between planned and completed activity. A booked meeting is a plan, not an output. Our article on event meeting no-shows explains why the gap between booked and held meetings is larger than most organisers expect, and how to measure it honestly.
Which indicators belong in the report
Once the chain is in place, the indicator plan decides what you actually count. The table below works as a starting point. Adapt the wording to the indicators in your grant agreement or funding decision, because those are the ones you will be measured against.
| Indicator | Level | Source | Evidence | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Organisations registered, by type and country | Output | Registration | Registration export | Each event |
| Organisations with at least one meeting held | Output | Meeting data | Meeting export | Each event |
| Meetings held | Output | Table confirmation or check-in | Meeting export | Each event |
| Organisations active on the community platform between events | Output | Platform | Activity export | Quarterly |
| Organisations reporting a follow-up contact | Early result | Follow-up questionnaire | Answers plus response rate | 3 months after |
| Joint applications or offers submitted | Result | Follow-up, partner reports | Application reference or confirmation | 3 to 12 months after |
| Formal cooperation agreements | Result | Follow-up, documents | Signed agreement, letter of intent | 12 months after, project end |
Count organisations, not handshakes
EU indicators count organisations. RCO 87 in the Interreg list counts “organisations cooperating across borders”, and RCR 84 counts the ones still cooperating after the project (Regulation (EU) 2021/1058, Annex I). There, the count covers project partners; apply the same principle to your participants. So deduplicate. One company that held 14 meetings across three events is one organisation in this column. Keep the meeting count as a separate output.
One organisation, fourteen meetings, one count.
Report the response rate with every survey figure
If 120 of 400 participants answered your follow-up, say so next to the result. Do not extrapolate the 120 answers to all 400 without stating it. A project officer who finds an unexplained extrapolation will question every other figure in the report.
Evidence that survives a review
Numbers are only half of a funder report. The other half is proof that a reviewer can check. Imagine the project officer opening your final report, picking one of the twelve agreements at random and asking to see it. That request should take you two minutes, not two weeks.
For RCR 84, Interreg Central Europe expects the continued cooperation to be “based on a formal agreement”, documented by the organisations themselves. It names council decisions, letters of intent and memoranda of understanding as examples (indicator fiches, 2023). Your own programme rules may differ, but the principle travels well:
- One folder per result: store the document, the date, the organisations involved and the event or meeting where the contact started.
- Attribution in the follow-up: ask whether the contact started at your event or already existed. Report “contributed to” where you cannot claim more.
- A clear cut-off date: decide which results count for which reporting period, and stick to it in every report.
“We are in talks” is a useful signal for your own planning. It is not evidence for a funder.
A programme report is also a different exercise from estimating what a congress brings to a city’s economy. That calculation, with multipliers and visitor spending, is covered in our guide to the economic impact of events. A funder report stays with the organisations you served and what changed for them.
Data protection: inform at registration, not afterwards
Follow-up questions need personal data, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets the timing. Under Article 13, you inform people about the purposes of processing at the moment you collect their data. This is where the report really starts: on the registration form. In practice, the form already says three things: that you will contact participants after the event to ask about results, that aggregated figures go to the funder, and who to contact with questions.
Naming an organisation in a published success story is a separate step. It is advisable to ask for permission each time, in writing. Our GDPR checklist for event software covers the platform side, such as hosting, processing agreements and deletion periods. Have your legal team check the wording for your programme; this article is not legal advice.
A reporting calendar for a three-year programme
With the data and the permissions in place, the remaining question is rhythm. Most multi-year programmes report on three levels, and each needs different data.
| Period | What you report | Data you need |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterly | Activity overview for the steering group | Events, registrations, meetings held, platform activity |
| Annually | Periodic or interim report to the funder | Outputs against targets, early results, deviations and reasons |
| Project end | Final report | Results with evidence, agreements, lessons for the next programme |
| Up to three months after the end, where rules allow | Late results | Agreements signed shortly after the project, with documents |
The quarterly overview is not for the funder. It is for you. If activity on the community platform drops in the second year, you want to know in month 15, not in the final report. Innovation programmes that keep members in contact between the big events, as described in our guide to ecosystem builder events, have more to report because more happens between the dates.
Back to the programme manager. When the project officer asks what came out of it, she now answers with a number and a document behind it.
Converve keeps the output side of the chain in one place. Registrations, meeting requests, confirmed meetings, acceptance rates and engagement such as logins and session attendance appear in a live dashboard and can be exported for stakeholders, as described on our Marketing and Analytics page. The meeting matrix in B2B matchmaking is rule-based, so you can also explain to a funder which participant groups could request meetings with each other, and under which rules. Collect later results, such as joint applications or agreements, through your own follow-up and store the supporting evidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between output and result indicators?
An output indicator measures what a programme delivered, such as events held, organisations registered or meetings that took place. A result indicator measures the effect on the people or organisations supported, such as joint applications or signed cooperation agreements. EU cohesion policy defines both terms in Article 2 of Regulation (EU) 2021/1060.
How do you measure the impact of a brokerage event?
Count meetings held as the output, then follow up with participants after about three and twelve months. Ask whether a second contact, an offer, a joint application or an agreement followed, and collect documents for every result you report. Long-term impact on a region is usually assessed by the funder’s own evaluation.
When should you collect follow-up data after a matchmaking event?
A first short follow-up after about three months captures early results such as second meetings and offers. A second follow-up after about twelve months captures agreements and projects. Align both with your reporting deadlines so that results arrive before the report is due, not after it.
What counts as evidence of cooperation in EU-funded projects?
It depends on the programme rules. For the Interreg result indicator RCR 84, Interreg Central Europe expects a formal agreement to continue cooperation, documented by the organisations, such as a council decision, a letter of intent or a memorandum of understanding (indicator fiches, 2023). A verbal statement of intent does not meet this requirement.
Can we use participant data for funder reports under GDPR?
Usually yes, if there is a legal basis under Article 6 GDPR, such as legitimate interest or a reporting obligation in your grant agreement, you inform participants at registration about the follow-up and the reporting purpose (Article 13) and you report aggregated figures. Before naming an organisation, for example in a success story, it is advisable to get its separate permission. Check the details with your data protection officer.
Conclusion: decide at registration what you will need to prove
A useful impact report shows what the funded activities changed for participants, with evidence to support the findings. The chain that delivers this starts with the registration form, runs through meetings held and two follow-ups, and ends with clearly organised evidence for the review. Keep a clear record of the organisations involved, report response rates, and inform participants before you need their answers.
Early planning gives your team time to collect evidence, check response rates and follow up on missing information before a review. Planning a brokerage programme or community platform with funder reporting requirements? Talk to Converve.
