OK I think I see how Toronto Dollars works. Never heard of temple dollars but maybe it's the same.

A bit like a lottery to pay money to charity with the hope of not having to actually pay it. Some poor [censored] ends up footing the bill when he's holding a pile of expired dollars or the system collapses and he only gets 90% of their face value back.

A bit like the Lehman Brothers minibonds investors wink