How to measure networking at an event (and report it to sponsors or a funder)

Many organizers promise networking and then report attendance. To measure networking at an event, count what both sides confirmed: people who connected and meetings that both people agreed took place. A pair count can sit beside them, but it includes unanswered requests. Report those as aggregate numbers to sponsors or a funder, and name nobody. This article explains each number, where it comes from, and what you should never claim from it.

Why are attendance and app downloads the wrong numbers?

Attendance and downloads measure arrival, not networking. A full room tells a sponsor that people came, and an app with many installs tells them people were curious. Neither says whether anyone met anyone. That is the gap between what is sold and what is reported.

Headcount is still worth reporting. It is the denominator. A sponsor who hears "40 people connected" wants to know out of how many. But it should not carry the claim about networking, because it cannot.

The same goes for page opens, profile views and messages sent. They are signals of activity, and they are cheap to produce. A person can open twenty profiles and speak to nobody. If you report them, label them as activity. Do not label them as relationships.

What you want instead is a number that required two people to agree. That is a harder standard, and it gives you a smaller number. It is also the kind that survives a skeptical question from a funder.

What counts as a connection?

A connection counts when both people confirmed it. On Kohtaa that means one of two things: both people pressed "We met", or one person sent a "Get in touch" request and the other accepted it. Each is recorded on both people's accounts, with the event and the date.

The definitions matter, so here they are in the words the product uses. At an open networking event, the headline number is People connected: attendees who connected with at least one other attendee, where both pressed "We met", or one accepted the other's request to get in touch. Next to it sits a pair count, labelled Pairs with any contact, which includes requests that nobody has accepted yet. That second number is not "connections", and it should not be called that.

At a structured event with booked meetings, the headline number is People met face to face: attendees who had at least one booked meeting that both people confirmed took place. Next to it is the count of meetings held.

Two limits belong in every report. A connection is not a conversation: an accepted request means the two can now see each other's details, not that they spoke. And People met face to face counts confirmed booked meetings only. It does not include "We met" presses.

What is the difference between a booked meeting and a held one?

A booked meeting is a promise; a held meeting is one both people confirmed afterwards. Counting bookings gives you the size of the plan, and counting confirmations gives you what happened. Report the second, and say how it was counted.

In a structured event, an attendee requests a meeting, the other accepts, and the meeting gets a time and, on a slot grid, a table. That is a booking. After the time has passed, both people are asked to confirm that it took place. A meeting is recorded as having happened only when both confirm. One-sided confirmations do not count.

This is why the numbers can look lower than the number of bookings. That is the point. A funder reading "meetings booked" has no way to tell whether any happened. A funder reading "meetings held, each confirmed by both people" has something they can ask about and check.

Whichever mode your event uses, you choose it once when you set the event up. The choice decides which numbers exist, so make it with your reporting in mind: open networking or booked meetings.

How do you report it to sponsors or a funder without naming anyone?

Report counts, with definitions beside each, and no names. Sponsors and funders need to know that networking happened and roughly how much. They do not need to know who met whom, and attendees will use the tool more openly if they know the organizer cannot see their pairs.

Kohtaa is built that way. Meeting pairs are private by default. On a private event, which is how every event created through the product is set up today, the organizer sees aggregate counts, per-attendee counts and which slots are occupied, but not who is meeting whom. The report you take from the system reads the same aggregate counts, and it says at the foot that no attendee or pair is named.

A short report can say, in this order:

1. How many attendees joined.
2. The headline number for your mode, with its definition.
3. The pair or meeting count, with its definition.
4. How many "Get in touch" requests were sent, and how many were accepted, waiting or declined (open events only).
5. How many profiles were complete, rounded down.
6. A note that every connection counted was confirmed by both people.

Say plainly that the numbers can move. Confirmations arrive after the event closes, so a report written on the night will be lower than one written a week later. Date your report and say which one it is.

If a sponsor asks "which of our contacts met whom?", the honest answer is that the system does not tell the organizer, and that this is why attendees were willing to take part. That answer protects the next event as well. If you need to describe it to attendees, the privacy note on a private event's join page says exactly that individual meeting pairs are not visible to the organizer.

The designed post-event report page is part of the Large and Annual plans; see pricing. Medium events can read the same live counts on the organizer overview.

What should you never claim from these numbers?

Never claim more than the definition supports. A connection is two people agreeing they met. It is not trust, a deal, a conversation, a verified investor, or a return on investment. The numbers describe participation that both sides confirmed, and that is all.

Here is a short list of things that look reasonable and are not:

• "We measured trust." Software cannot observe trust directly. Kohtaa records interactions between two people; it does not claim to measure trust itself.
• "These are verified founders and investors." Labels are what attendees declared at that event. Say "joined as a Founder".
• "Meetings went up by X percent." Do not compare with other events or with industry figures unless you have both measured the same way. We do not quote benchmarks and neither should you borrow them.
• "ROI of X." Networking return depends on what happens after the event. A count of confirmed connections is an input to that story, not the result.
• "The numbers are final." They are not, for the reason above.

Be careful, too, with any number from another event that you did not measure the same way. A funder will ask how it was counted. Having the definitions in front of you is the best defence.

Where does the trust graph fit?

The trust graph is the record behind these numbers: who confirmed meeting whom, at which event, and when, kept on both people's accounts. Organizers see it only as aggregate counts. Attendees see their own connections, and their progress across events is tracked in the 7 Points of Contact.

The idea comes from a plain observation. One event rarely turns an introduction into a relationship. Research on trust describes it as something built and tested continuously rather than decided at a first meeting, and research on personal networks ties closeness to the number of interactions two people have invested in each other. Kohtaa's model, the 7 Points of Contact, names seven specific interactions and records each as it happens, from a profile viewed to a mutual endorsement. The model is Kohtaa's own, built on that research. It is not a peer-reviewed finding, and it is explained on the methodology page.

For measuring, that has one consequence. The same confirmed connections you report as an organizer are the ones attendees carry with them. When they meet again at a second event, their progress carries forward. If someone deletes their account, their personal data is erased and only an anonymous record that the two connected at that event remains, with no profile data on it.

So the measurement and the long-term record are the same thing, seen from two sides. If you run conferences and want to see how this looks in practice, the page on corporate conferences goes through it, and investor days covers the structured case. To discuss reporting for a specific funder, contact us.