Engagement marketing takes many forms, and while blogs and social networking sites are the most common manifestations, other engagement models are waiting to be discovered.

For Kiva.org, engagement isn’t a goal. It’s the operational model for the organization itself.

Kiva: Socially Responsible Fun

Kiva is a US-based non-profit serving the microcredit industry - the suddenly high-profile economic development industry founded by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and his Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank.

The idea is simple: lend money to poor entrepreneurs who traditionally have no access to credit. The loans are small by USA standards, but in underdeveloped areas, a short-term loan of even $100 delivers astonishing results, which is why philanthropic heavyweights like Bill Gates are suddenly pouring money into the field.

Kiva’s overseas field partners choose candidates for micro-loans, provide business and financial training, and submit business ideas and loan requests to Kiva.

It’s at this point that Kiva’s brilliant engagement model takes over. Socially conscious users create accounts on the Kiva Web site with as little as $25, and then choose which budding entrepreneurs to fund from the list on Kiva’s site, which includes a short bio of the entrepreneur and their business.

Many loans help micro-enterprises grow, providing the extra boost of capital that’s simply not available to small businesses in poverty-striken areas.

Kiva’s field partners disburse funds to the chosen entrepreneurs, and collect the repayments. Once a loan is paid off, the money is returned to the lender’s account, where he can withdraw it or make a loan to a different entrepreneur.

The Game

In essence, each lender operates as a micro venture capitalist (though lenders don’t receive interest), and a $500 account - loaned and repaid several times - can support many, many entrepreneurs over the course of several years.

Periodic reports keep “investors” appraised of loan repayment, and the industry-wide repayment rate is an astonishing 97% (Kiva itself has never had a loan default).

It’s an efficient, high-tech version of the microlending model developed by Muhammad Yunus in 1976, who started the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh with his own $27.

The level of engagement is astonishing, and indeed - despite receiving little press and less marketing - Kiva’s early days were marked by more loan money than budding entrepreneurs.

Today their list of entrepreneurs has grown longer, but a quick glance shows that most of the loans have already been partially funded.

Engagement as a Business Model

Everything about Kiva is dedicated to bridging the distance between lenders and those they fund - typically from underdeveloped nations halfway around the globe.

It’s non-profit engagement marketing taken to an extreme level, and though the model can’t be directly applied to most for-profit businesses, elements certainly do apply.

Imagine ordering a car via the Internet, meeting those responsible for its construction, and then receiving updates as the materials come together, the car is assembled, and then shipped.

It’s in the moment when an essential humanity is attached to a product or service that a customer becomes linked to a company instead of tied to the purchase of product.

In the case of kiva.org, the human link is palpable, with the lender taking a direct and very human interest in the success of an entrepreneur halfway around the globe.

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