Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis.

In general, our most important theoretical and empirical contribution is that incentives and intrinsic motivation are not of necessity antagonistic; We found that incentives coexist with intrinsic motivation, depending on the type of performance and the contingency of the incentive. http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-03897-001

Did you consider giving the grants to several organizers working part-time with one group?

Some arguments against:

• It's more difficult to coordinate with multiple people

• Organizers need to coordinate with each other

• The required skillset is very rare, assuming each organizer needs to perform well w.r.t all of the skills listed.

Some arguments in favor:

• Low transferable career capital (outside the EA community). Some potential candidates expressed concerns that working full time would require them to interrupt their studies. Working part time would mostly just mean they would quit their student jobs (e.g. as tutors at the university), which has significantly lower opportunity costs. Offering part-time positions might therefore result in more high-quality applications.

• Tax considerations (In Germany and likely even more in Scandinavian Countries). In Germany, with an income of 35000€ per year you'll have to pay about 5000€ in taxes. Three incomes of ~11650€ result in 0€ in tax payments. The average income of a student in Germany is 918*12=11016 (according to the German social suvey 2016 -http://www.sozialerhebung.de/index_html/documents/englisch).