Hi,
Tamil Wikipedians conducted an essay contest encouraging new editors.
We created 918 articles over a period of 3 months where 25 new editors participated.
The total prize money was 52,000 INR.
More details can be found at our contest portal
here.
Feel free to leave a message for us in our contest talk page if you need help in running a similar contest your Wikipedia.
Thanks,
Ravi