(i) Neither of them could offer the certificates unilaterally unless they had sorted this out in advance, since workers often do jobs in part because of their humanitarian impact. I suspect no one at most EA organizations would be working there for the salary!
(ii) Yes. (This is very similar to the last point, with similar caveats.)
I don’t think that trading certificates will be worthwhile very often. As you say, people tend to work on things they are particularly optimistic about. So for the moment I mostly expect the buyers and sellers to be disjoint sets.
Good point on (i). I’d been (somewhat inconsistently) thinking of for-profit ventures.
I realise that there is an interpretation of impact under which issue (ii) could disappears. Donors have given money to the charity to make use to further their charitable objectives. It’s generally fine for charities to do things like fundraising with some of this money. Performing charitable activities and selling the certificates of impact if they think they can make better use of the money would just be another form of fundraising. This is analogous to a company issuing more shares—although it dilutes the ownership of existing shareholders, it is balanced by the extra value the company now holds.
Of course you’d also need to resolve the employer/employee issue.
(i) Neither of them could offer the certificates unilaterally unless they had sorted this out in advance, since workers often do jobs in part because of their humanitarian impact. I suspect no one at most EA organizations would be working there for the salary!
(ii) Yes. (This is very similar to the last point, with similar caveats.)
I don’t think that trading certificates will be worthwhile very often. As you say, people tend to work on things they are particularly optimistic about. So for the moment I mostly expect the buyers and sellers to be disjoint sets.
Good point on (i). I’d been (somewhat inconsistently) thinking of for-profit ventures.
I realise that there is an interpretation of impact under which issue (ii) could disappears. Donors have given money to the charity to make use to further their charitable objectives. It’s generally fine for charities to do things like fundraising with some of this money. Performing charitable activities and selling the certificates of impact if they think they can make better use of the money would just be another form of fundraising. This is analogous to a company issuing more shares—although it dilutes the ownership of existing shareholders, it is balanced by the extra value the company now holds.
Of course you’d also need to resolve the employer/employee issue.