Matt Damon and Gary White Discuss How Water.org's Innovation Saved 600 Years of Effort

Co-founded by Matt Damon and Gary White, Water.org has helped millions gain access to safe water through an innovative and highly effective microloan model. The nonprofit is now launching the Get Blue campaign with brand partners like Gap, Starbucks, Amazon, and Ecolab. It is designed to give consumers a chance to easily support and learn about the cause in their daily life.

In an exclusive Men's Journal interview, Damon and White reveal the campaign's goals, how their approach has saved the equivalent of 600 years of work, and more about Water.org. Damon also discusses starring in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and working with Kevin Smith on Dogma.

Matt Damon and Gary White on Innovation That Changed Water.org Forever

Men's Journal: What is the specific goal of the Get Blue campaign?



Matt Damon: It's to raise awareness and also funds for the work of Water.org. We've been doing this for a long time, Gary, longer than me. I've been doing it for 20 years, and Gary probably twice that. It's a massive problem in the sense that 2 billion-plus people don't have access to safe water. That's just one in four human beings.

It's not something that affects many of us. When I got into this 20 years ago, it was because I couldn't believe how big this issue was and how no one was talking about it. That's because it's not really relatable for us. It has massive impacts across all areas of extreme poverty. A million kids are dying every year. Girls aren't in school, which greatly affects their outcomes and stifles their potential.

As we've been doing this work together for the last 17 years, the question we always get from people is, "What can I do to help?" This is the best answer we've come up with. We've got these great brand partners, these companies that are all doing things that are in their different wheelhouses to help us. Gap's doing a clothing capsule, with t-shirts, sweatshirts, jeans, and donating to Get Blue. If you buy one of the capsules, you're basically donating $5 to Water.org, and $5 is the cost to get somebody safe water for life. Starbucks is doing these blue matcha and blue coconut refresher drinks.

Ideally, what will happen is that people will start to see this in different areas of their lives and know what it is. The campaign will help build awareness and activate people to get involved and help.

Men's Journal: Gary, Water.org has helped more than 85 million people gain access to safe water, which is just incredible. How will the proceeds from this campaign concretely help you get closer to your goal of helping 200 million people by 2030?

Gary White: I think it's about connection and action. What we're seeing is all of these great brands helping us connect with people who are in a position to help. For example, Amazon is letting people listen to a Get Blue playlist that will generate income for Water.org. We can take that and then apply it to the model that we've been doing for years.

The number of people Water.org has helped is actually up over 90 million now. That's how quickly we've been reaching more and more people with safe water. I think being able to connect people to the action is the key to this whole initiative. Once that money flows from Gap, Amazon, Ecolab, or Starbucks, what we're able to do is to put that to work immediately to help people, particularly women who are in charge of water collection around the world.

What we do is we help them get access to a small loan so that they can get the water solutions that are best for them. Those women repay those loans at a rate of 98%, which allows the money to cycle back to the next woman who needs a loan for a water connection. That's the model that we're working with, which allows us to ramp that up with the partners. Those partners have been working with us for years on this philanthropy model. So, they have great confidence that when the money comes in, the impact is going to happen.

Men's Journal: When I learned about Water.org, I initially assumed the company would be giving out charity. But I was blown away by the concept of giving loans because I thought it was a brilliant way to keep recycling money to help more and more people. Where did the Water.org team come up with the idea of adopting that business plan?

Matt Damon: I can speak to that because Gary will be really humble. This was an insight and innovation entirely from Gary. His idea was built on the Nobel Prize-winning work of Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank, and microloaning in general. But, before Gary, nobody had thought to apply those ideas to the water sector because it's not a traditional income-generating loan. What the loan does is buy people's time back, and it's an income-enhancing loan.

Gary knew from a lifetime in these communities that people were already paying for water. Sometimes they were even paying a great deal more than people in the middle- and upper-class communities. But they had no savings to change that. So, if you could just front them the money, they could get the connection that works for them.

The loans get paid back at 98%, which says a couple of things. One, that they're affordable, and two, they're working because nobody takes out a loan for something they don't need. It's really about empowerment. It's not the traditional charity model that has a patina of paternalism to it and feels like, "I know what you need, here it is, and you're welcome." It's about saying to them, "Let's nudge the market toward you and get out of your way and let you solve the problem." That was Gary's insight.

It took work to bring these small banks along to convince them that this would be effective. It's worked out as well as we could have hoped. And that's how we've reached 90 million people. To put it in perspective, had we stayed just drilling wells, which is how we started, it would have taken us 600 years to get to where we are right now. So, it's a great innovation, and it's scaling.

These founding partners in Get Blue were all working with us before this and were really familiar with our model, how it was working, and they were excited about it. That's why they convened a group and started troubleshooting ways in which they could maximize their impact and help us accelerate the work.

Men's Journal: Speaking of innovation, one of the things I was really impressed with was the creative ways your partners are raising money for the Get Blue campaign. For example, Gap's creation of limited-edition clothing was an awesome idea since everyone loves getting something special. How impressed were you when you learned what your partners were doing, and did you have any input?

Matt Damon: We let them take the lead. They're great at what they do. That's why they're these blue-chip companies. They know how we work and that we're about being creative and innovative. So, they really said, "Okay, well, what do we do really well? I got you. We'll do this." That's what it is.

As we're looking to attract more partners into this movement, we really want people to participate in ways that are helpful for the work that they do and will be the most impactful. It's not our place to tell Starbucks how to do this. Then they would have to say, "No, no, here's what we're going to do. We're going to do a blue matcha." (Laughs)

When Gap told us, "We can do a hoodie and a T-shirt." Then, we said, "We never would have thought of this." This is about building awareness and not only just raising money for the work that we're doing. We're really trying to kind of penetrate the public consciousness.

Gary White: What we do really well is water. We know how to reach tens of millions of people. We know how to take philanthropy and turn it into more capital. More than $8 billion in loans have circulated under this program. That's $8 billion of charity that we didn't have to raise.

We use philanthropy very strategically to unleash the market and we know how to do that. We also have enough humility to know that when it comes to asking, "How do you insert yourself into culture and create a movement?" We have to rely on people who know that best. That's the thing about these brands. They know their customers. They know the generations that they're reaching. Take Gap, for instance. When they started, they were not just selling jeans. They were selling albums. So, they know music and culture. For us, the idea is to attach ourselves to the creativity of what they're already doing that helps and complements what we do.

What Matt Damon Revealed About 'The Odyssey'

Men's Journal: Matt, I have to ask you a question about The Odyssey. You have the honor of starring in a Christopher Nolan movie about one of the most famous stories of all time. That makes me curious. Are there any elements of the movie that you anticipate will surprise people despite how well-known the story is?

Matt Damon: I don't want to give anything away yet. It is a very faithful retelling of The Odyssey, but it's Christopher Nolan. I'm incredibly happy with how it turned out. It was a minor miracle that we got all the shots we did the way we did. It meant that everybody had to absolutely max out to get that done. That's what's so exciting. Pretty much everything was shot in camera, which is how we would have done it 80 years ago. That was an incredible challenge. I'm thrilled with the movie. I'm thrilled with how it looks. I saw it in IMAX, and I couldn't be happier.

Matt Damon Reflects on Working With Kevin Smith on 'Dogma'

Men's Journal: I also have to ask you about one of my all-time favorite movies, Dogma. Your character in that movie would go from feeling like he was in a stoner comedy to delivering impassioned and information-dense diatribes at a moment's notice. Was it a challenge to go from those two extremes while making them both feel natural to the same character?

Matt Damon: So much of that is Kevin Smith. It's all in the writing and in his script. I love the way he writes. Kevin will tell you this, too. He'll give actors line readings. He hears all the dialogue in his head like music, and he's an actor and a director. So, he's played all the parts in his head. I found it was very, very fun to work with him and very easy to work with him because the writing has a musicality to it, almost. Because of that, it leads you right where you need to go.

Men's Journal: Speaking of musicality, you recorded a rap for an ad about the Get Blue campaign. What was the inspiration behind the rap song, Matt?

Matt Damon: We will do anything to try to cut through the noise. We'll do silly stuff, and I'm not afraid to make a fool of myself if it means people will pay attention to this. This is something definitely worthy of paying attention to.



Men's Journal: Gary, I hope to see you do a rap duet with Matt for the next campaign.



Matt Damon: (Laughs) You're a glutton for punishment, man.



Gary White: (Laughs) That's high on my list to avoid.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

2026 The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 1:33 PM.