Khachkar Studios Unveils $100 Million Investment to Revitalize Armenian Christian Faith
Initiative aims for 6.1x social return by closing performance gaps in U.S. Armenian Christian ecosystem.
LOS ANGELES — Khachkar Studios has announced a groundbreaking $100 million philanthropic investment – one of the largest in modern history to support "Judeo-Christian" faith – aimed at revitalizing the Armenian Christian ecosystem in the United States. The initiative is backed by 5,000 hours of pro bono senior management work and is projected to deliver a 6.1x social return on investment (SROI).
The initiative surpasses by over 600% the total religious giving of the four largest Armenian-founded foundations over the past 23 years and represents 243% of the combined annual budgets of all 164 Armenian churches in the U.S. It also intends to scale “Good News” media outreach to more than 25 times the current total of all other Armenian religious media efforts combined.
Khachkar Studios identified systemic barriers in 11 of 12 “body parts” of the Armenian Christian ecosystem, including low church attendance and engagement. Research shows Armenian church attendance ranks next to last among 23 U.S. Orthodox Christian groups, contradicting common perceptions.
Three key near-term goals include doubling the number of actively engaged believers, expanding daily Bible readership from 1,000 to over 41,000, and funding high-impact pilot churches with up to $400,000 each over five years.
Khachkar Studios, a media affiliate of the Charles & Agnes Kazarian Foundation and Japonica Partners, is known for leveraging world-class benchmarking to “empower Christian role models through ‘Good News’ education, training, and retention (E-T-R).”
Previously, UOJ reported that two detained archbishops of the Armenian Apostolic Church had declared a one-day hunger strike on July 5 to protest what they call unconstitutional persecution by Armenian authorities.
