Full disclosure: I fear I do not completely understand your idea. Having said that, I hope my comment is at list a little useful to you.
Think about the following cases:
(1) I donate to an organization that distributes bednets in Africa and receive a certificate. I then trade that certificate for a new pair of shoes. My money, which normally can only be used for one of these purposes, is now used for both.
(2) I work for a non-profit and receive a salary. I also receive certificates. So I am being paid double?
The second case is easily solved, just give the employee either or. But then, what is the benefit of a certificate over a dollar bill?
The first case presents a bigger problem I think, since essentially something is created from nothing. Notice that donations are not investments the donor can expect a return on (even if they are an investment in others).
If you buy and then sell a certificate, you aren’t funding the charity, the ultimate holder of the certificate is. They will only buy the certificate if they are interested in funding the charity.
You could pretend you are funding the charity, but that wouldn’t be true—the person you sold the certificate to would otherwise have bought it from someone else, perhaps directly from the charity. So your net effect on the charity’s funding is 0. I could just as well give some money to my friend and pretend I was funding an effective charity.
(I’m setting aside the tax treatment for now.)
You would pay an employee with certificates for the same reason a company might pay an emplyee in equity. If there is no secondary market, this can be better for the company for liquidity reasons, and can introduce a component of performance pay. But even if there is a secondary market (e.g. for Google stock), it can still be a financially attractive way for a company to pay a large part of its salary, because it passes some of the risk on to the employee without having to constantly adjust dollar-denominated salaries. (There are also default effects, where paying employees in certificates would likely lead to them holding some certificates.)
Full disclosure: I fear I do not completely understand your idea. Having said that, I hope my comment is at list a little useful to you.
Think about the following cases: (1) I donate to an organization that distributes bednets in Africa and receive a certificate. I then trade that certificate for a new pair of shoes. My money, which normally can only be used for one of these purposes, is now used for both. (2) I work for a non-profit and receive a salary. I also receive certificates. So I am being paid double?
The second case is easily solved, just give the employee either or. But then, what is the benefit of a certificate over a dollar bill? The first case presents a bigger problem I think, since essentially something is created from nothing. Notice that donations are not investments the donor can expect a return on (even if they are an investment in others).
If you buy and then sell a certificate, you aren’t funding the charity, the ultimate holder of the certificate is. They will only buy the certificate if they are interested in funding the charity.
You could pretend you are funding the charity, but that wouldn’t be true—the person you sold the certificate to would otherwise have bought it from someone else, perhaps directly from the charity. So your net effect on the charity’s funding is 0. I could just as well give some money to my friend and pretend I was funding an effective charity.
(I’m setting aside the tax treatment for now.)
You would pay an employee with certificates for the same reason a company might pay an emplyee in equity. If there is no secondary market, this can be better for the company for liquidity reasons, and can introduce a component of performance pay. But even if there is a secondary market (e.g. for Google stock), it can still be a financially attractive way for a company to pay a large part of its salary, because it passes some of the risk on to the employee without having to constantly adjust dollar-denominated salaries. (There are also default effects, where paying employees in certificates would likely lead to them holding some certificates.)