TraumaLink: Providing Trauma First Aid Services in Bangladesh Using Trained Volunteers

This case describes the challenges facing Jon Moussally, the CEO of TraumaLink, a four-year-old social venture that provided trauma first aid to victims of traffic injuries in Bangladesh, a country that had some of the most dangerous highways in the world but no formal emergency response system. Jon, a practicing emergency room physician and public health student, had been shocked by the chaotic traffic that he observed during a trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh, for a course on global health issues. Over the next 18 months, Jon and three partners-two fellow students and the Bangladeshi head of a local social venture organization-decided on a three-pronged approach: they would train community-based volunteers who lived or worked close to the highway to provide free basic trauma first aid; they would develop an easy-to-use 911-type software system to deploy volunteers quickly to a crash scene; and they planned to raise operating funds by selling advertising or subscriptions to companies in Bangladesh whose workers travelled the dangerous highways daily. By the fall of 2017, TraumaLink had been successfully launched along two sections of particularly dangerous highways. Their trained volunteers had been able to quickly and effectively provide first aid to victims of traffic injuries. The software had worked well to notify and deploy volunteers and collect data. However, Jon and his partners had not yet found sustainable, long-term sources of revenue, despite almost four years of trying. After an initial pilot phase in November 2014, the organization had been awarded $142,500 by the US Agency for International Development, but these funds would run out by the end of 2018, with little chance of another round. TraumaLink had proven that they could deliver emergency services and save lives, but could Jon and his partners figure out how to become financially sustainable so that they could continue to support and expand their services within Bangladesh and possibly beyond?

• Public health services
• Foreign investment
• Corporate social responsibility