For a typical event to be considered successful, event should be should be cash flow positive after paying to everyone you promised you will after event concludes.

Below are some tips to raise money for an event

1. Start early: Start as soon as possible. Best time to start looking for sponsorships for your next event is just after you have finished your current event. Its easier to get traction from all people who were involved with the event( in any form)
2. Budget your event: Calculate how much you need to execute your event. This might change over the  period of time, but knowing your target amount would help you plan your strategy to raise money.
3. Demographic Information: Prepare demographic information about people who have attended this before and the people who are going to attend event. This would help potential sponsors to decide if their product and marketing dollars are well suited for the event.
4. Do research on the companies you are approaching. Understand their goals and initiatives and approach them with a couple of ideas and ways you can help them attain those goals.
5. Maintain records of last events and thereafter and put everything in a nice presentable format (maybe as a website or paper brochures/presentation).  This would help you convince potential sponsors that you are not doing this for the first time and would give them confidence in your ability to execute event. Consider this as your report card.
6. Create a value proposition for what your sponsors are going to get out of sponsoring the event. Having a well defined opportunity for sponsors and associated coverage numbers would help sponsors take decision.
7. Networking all year round: If you are doing event, make sure you are networking all year around. Not only this would help you raise money but would help you get event attendees.

Do you have any other suggestions for event managers? Add in your comments below