Tom has a pretty good day job, so I suspect that money isn't the thing.

The sigbovik conference seems to be the motivating goal behind these videos. I think the key thing would be to make sure that sigbovik continues and that people are excited about the papers.

Unfortunately, Tom's a lot more creativity and concept-driven than money driven. So the best strategy is probably to spend the money on some kind of near-C sublight vehicle and take a one-hour jaunt in it, then return to Earth in a year and see what's tickled Tom's fancy since you last saw him.

this solution may have side-effects that are left as an exercise for the Rocketeer.