I worked with about a dozen or so for a few years and from what I saw they are nothing but one layer of horror built upon another. The incentives are so misaligned that the distinction between "scam" and "incompetence" is virtually meaningless. There is absolutely zero sense of financial reality or proportion present anywhere. If your organization spends $500,000 to rescue one dog but gets a lot of media coverage and banks a ton of photos and video to use in future fundraising efforts, this is a win. If next year you spend $10 million on marketing and development events and are able to raise $10,600,0000 for your efforts, that's also a win.
One especially crazy example of this thinking is the constant internal fundraising efforts. Most of the organizations I worked with were constantly doing internal fundraising, e.g. collecting donation from the same employees they were paying. These efforts would consume absolutely enormous amounts of on the clock employee time on frankly quite childish activities (think accountants doing arts and crafts with markers and construction paper) to raise a pittance in donations from their own employees. Most of the organizations did this once per month. In some cases this consumed an entire workday for a large proportion of employees for an average donation of $5-$15 dollars.
One especially crazy example of this thinking is the constant internal fundraising efforts. Most of the organizations I worked with were constantly doing internal fundraising, e.g. collecting donation from the same employees they were paying. These efforts would consume absolutely enormous amounts of on the clock employee time on frankly quite childish activities (think accountants doing arts and crafts with markers and construction paper) to raise a pittance in donations from their own employees. Most of the organizations did this once per month. In some cases this consumed an entire workday for a large proportion of employees for an average donation of $5-$15 dollars.