Yes, and it's not just non-profit foundations, or even social causes. I've seen it in big corporations too, where some "parasite" as you call them ascends the ranks and "spearheads" some new "initiative", that turns out to have really dubious value and is frequently just reinventing the wheel. For example, at a big tech company, instead of just using some ready-made off-the-shelf solution or using an established standard, pouring a ton of money into some new home-grown thing that does the same thing, perhaps with 5% better performance, but in the end isn't really worth it and cost a ton of money. But the guy who "spearheaded" it gets a big bonus and moves on to even higher roles in the company and leaving the fallout for someone else to deal with.