Pros
Many engineers try to do the best they can for the non-profits they are supporting.
Cons
High turn over. Between 2012 and 2014 an organization of less than 20 people had a turn over rate that exceeded 50%. Having multiple executives and engineers quit or terminated, only to have their replacements also quit or terminated.
Allegations of misconduct and discrimination involving principle staff, usually including or stemming from the CEO. When former staff and executives tried to address these issues with the CEO they were removed, paid to leave, or they left on their own. In the course of 6 months they dismissed a HR consulting company that was providing HR services, after the HR Director quit, and after that company gave advise that the CEO disagreed with. They then hire a new HR staff person who also agreed with the previous recommendations. That HR person did not last more than a couple weeks, if that long. The CEO has had numerous executive assistants. One of them moved to another department that did not involve reporting directly to her, and the rest have left the organization.
Dishonest and risky practices. In at least one case it resulted in an organization losing their entire infrastructure data because of mistakes made by their lead architect. This resulted in the discovery that numerous other organizations were at risk of total data loss due to incorrect backup practices and configurations. Most of these organizations were never made aware of the issue and the employees were instructed to resolve the issues quietly as they were more worried about losing the client than being honest with them and working with them to resolve the issues permanently. In another case 501cTech had a grant for years and did next to nothing about it till the grant was set to expire in less than 30 days. At that point it was decided, by management, that the grant report would be falsified as ~"they had no intention of using technology the grant was intended for".
Nothing is reliable. Even the company benefits changed, and in one case they found out that due to a contract obligation they couldn't just discontinue the matching retirement benefits. However, management withheld that information from the staff and as a result many employees stopped or reduced contributions because the staff were told that it had been discontinued. Training benefits were removed for everyone but the CEO who continued to take CEO training.