Abstract This paper examines the impact of population decline on an organization serving youth, to determine its impact on membership over a sixty year period. A double population chain model is used to identify population dynamics at the city and organization level. The model shows that membership would be greatly affected and that the response could either be downsizing or restructuring of activities. A multi-attribute model is then used to identify the preferences in all age groups of scouting to identify the criteria that they value in a after school activity and which activities compete with scouting.