The Worth of Water by Gary White & Matt Damon

Author:Gary White & Matt Damon [White, Gary & Damon, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

When Gary and I started working together, we adopted a rule that Ben Affleck once established for our screenwriting sessions: “Judge me on how good my good ideas are, not how bad my bad ideas are.” So as Gary and I were sitting in the back of a jeep in India, I felt free to suggest what I thought might be a very bad idea: “If these MFIs can’t get affordable capital,” I said, “why can’t we just raise it for them?”

When I was growing up, my dad, Kent Damon, was a stockbroker—so when it came to finance, I knew, as they say, just enough to be dangerous. It seemed to me that there was an enormous pool of money out there that we ought to be able to tap into. The amount of money that institutions across the world donate to development assistance each year is about $161 billion.[2] Which is a lot. Except that the amount of capital sitting in global markets is about $250 trillion.[3] That’s a lot more. It is, in fact, over 1,500 times more. Nonprofits aren’t in the habit of thinking about that kind of money, because it’s investment capital—money that is supposed to generate a financial return. The money that people (as well as corporate philanthropies) donated to Water.org had no such expectation attached. The whole idea of philanthropic giving is that it’s, well, giving. You give it away to help improve people’s lives and never expect to get it back. But why couldn’t we ask people and organizations to contribute differently to our work? What about asking some of them not to give the money away, but to invest it, and to get a modest return on that investment?

Gary was aware that some other organizations had started doing the same thing—funding their work with investment capital. He didn’t know if we’d be able to pull that off, but he didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t. Neither did I. As I told Gary, I was confident there were investors who’d accept some risk and lower returns for the guarantee of improving people’s lives. I mean, I’d do it. Which, I realized, might actually be a start. So I said: “If we can make this work, I’ll be the first to invest.”

On one of the last nights of the trip, we hosted a dinner in Bangalore with some leaders of Indian MFIs. Gary asked them: “If we could get you capital at half the price you’re paying for it now, how many people could you reach?”

One of the officials said, “Twice as many.”

Gary asked, “How soon could you start?”

This answer came quickly, too. “Tomorrow.”

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