Ben Affleck wins $1 million for his Congo charity

Ben Affleck won $1 million on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in an episode ABC aired on July 30, 2026, and none of it is his to keep. The full amount goes to the Eastern Congo Initiative, the nonprofit he co-founded in 2010.

He did not play alone. His partner in the chair was Jamie Ding, a Jeopardy! champion, with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. In this version of the show celebrities play for a cause, so every correct answer already had a destination attached to it.

A turkey question decided the million

The final question had nothing to do with movies or politics. It came out of an American Thanksgiving ritual: Affleck and Ding had to name which of the four options had never belonged to a turkey pardoned by a U.S. president.

The board read:

• Peanut Butter & Jelly
• Tater & Tot
• Mac & Cheese
• Spaghetti & Meatball

Spaghetti & Meatball was the right call, and that is the one they locked in.

Why the money is headed to eastern Congo

The Eastern Congo Initiative funds local organizations working in the eastern part of the country, and Affleck used his time on air to explain why the timing matters. That region is dealing with an Ebola outbreak.

I’ve been working with them for about 15 years. And right now, of course, as I’m sure most people know, there’s an Ebola crisis there, and so this is in large part designed to try to relieve that, contain the spread of Ebola.

The foundation does not run its own field programs. It channels money to groups already operating in the region, which means a lump sum like this one lands inside an existing network rather than starting a new one from scratch.

How often has the top prize been won under Kimmel?

This is the fifth million-dollar win since Jimmy Kimmel took over the show in 2020. Five clean finishes in six years says something about the format: the last question still knocks out well-prepared teams, even when a professional quizzer is sitting next to the celebrity.

Last year the top prize went to Matt Damon and Ken Jennings, who played for Water.org.

Affleck and Damon now share a game show result too

That detail is worth more than a footnote. The two have known each other since their Boston years, shared the 1998 screenwriting Oscar for Good Will Hunting, and launched the production company Artists Equity in 2022.

Now their television scorecards match as well, with one difference: Damon played for clean water access, Affleck for eastern Congo.

Affleck has spent recent years drawing more coverage for his personal life than for the work his foundation does on the ground, so this is the first time in a long stretch that the Eastern Congo Initiative has had a prime-time American audience to itself. The episode did the job a fundraising campaign normally has to pay for.

A million dollars does not stop an epidemic. In a sector that runs on donations, though, unrestricted money arriving all at once tends to move toward whatever is most urgent, and in eastern Congo that is Ebola containment, exactly as Affleck described it on camera.