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McKinsey Medium Operations

Curling and Careers

#Non-profit #Education

Practice this intermediate operations case interview question from McKinsey in the Non-profit sector. Includes detailed problem prompt, clarifying questions, structured framework, and expert recommendation. Part of ProHub's 835+ consulting case library.

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 26 minutes
Difficulty Medium
Source NYU
40 / 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
Mock Interview
Interviewer

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?

You

Thanks. Before analyzing, I'd like to clarify a few key questions...

Interviewer

Good question. Let me provide some background information...

You

Based on this, I suggest analyzing from these dimensions...

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Practice this case with AI Mock Interview

Curling & Careers, a NYC non-profit serving disadvantaged youth through curling and leadership development, cannot meet growing demand despite having 1,000 students. Analysis reveals that 1:1 mentoring has the highest unmet demand but is constrained by mentors spending 10 hours weekly on administrative reporting. Eliminating this administrative burden would free capacity to serve 420 additional students per week.

Key Insights:

  1. Identify the gap between capacity and demand across all programming offerings using data visualization
  2. Distinguish between financial constraints (funding, costs) and non-financial constraints (staff time, administrative burden, facility limitations)
  3. Calculate time allocation to find the true bottleneck: mentors’ administrative tasks, not the number of mentors
  4. Quantify impact of removing constraints and tie back to original data to validate the solution covers unmet demand
  5. Contextualize operational solutions within non-profit mission and recognize this is a partial solution requiring broader strategy