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McKinsey Medium Operations Capacity Planning

Curling and Careers

#Non-Profit #Youth Development
ProHub Comment

This case tests the candidate's ability to identify bottlenecks in a non-profit's operations through data interpretation and then calculate the impact of removing those constraints. The key is recognizing that while mentorship has high unmet demand, the real constraint is administrative work consuming mentor time, not the availability of mentors themselves. A strong response ties the quantitative finding (420 additional students) back to the original chart and considers implementation risks and broader organizational strategy.

Estimated Time 15 minutes
Difficulty Medium
Source NYU
50 / 100
Your client is Curling & Careers (C&C), the New York City chapter of a national non-profit organization. The non-profit aims to provide disadvantaged high school age students with leadership training and career development through an increasingly popular sport, curling. Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. C&C rents out ice hockey rinks around the city to host weekly curling practices and games. Students are also able to opt-in to leadership skills workshops, professional development sessions, and one-on-one mentoring. High school students apply to join C&C as an extracurricular after school program. The program is provided free of charge due to the generous support of large institutional donors. C&C’s main costs include facility rental, curling equipment, transportation, staff salaries, and administrative overhead. C&C has been growing quickly since 2021 when students returned to the classroom full-time and are unable to meet demand for all their programming. How can they increase their impact?

Clarifying Information

  1. Local chapters operate mostly independently
  2. National organization provides some funding and administrative support. Marketing of program results is done at national level
  3. Currently 1,000 students in program. Ages 14 – 18, coming from all of NYC
  4. Students can opt-in to any of the offered sessions
  5. Students are transported from school to the curling center. The weekly schedule varies, but always includes both curling and educational events
  6. To qualify for the program, students’ families must be under a certain income criteria
  7. Staff on payroll include: coaches, mentors, administrative personnel, and program coordinators
  8. The goal is to try to serve more students and meet demand. No clear target