Khachkar Studios, under the Charles & Agnes Kazarian Foundation, has unveiled a sweeping $100 million transformation campaign aimed at reviving Armenian Christian life in the United States. Rooted in data, structure, and faith-based strategy, the initiative represents the most ambitious plan of its kind to date—blending high-level management, bold media production, and measurable church renewal across the diaspora.
The Khachkar Studios announcement runs as follows:
“After decades of slow erosion, the Armenian Church in the United States has reached a pivotal juncture. Parishes are thinning, generations of engagement are nearly extinct, and digital irrelevance has rendered many ministries invisible. For some, this decline has felt inevitable. But Khachkar Studios sees something else—a pathway to revival, anchored by structure, not sentiment. With its newly launched $100 million transformation campaign, the studio is introducing a five-year blueprint to rebuild Armenian Christian life across the diaspora.
At the center of the plan is a first-of-its-kind framework: the “U.S. Armenian Christian Ecosystem 12 Body Parts.” This comprehensive model breaks down church health into twelve interconnected systems—including philanthropic support, religious content across the spectrum of media, regular Sunday attendance, school students, bible studies, management, and leadership training. It was created using 69 years of historical data, allowing for a precise diagnosis of system failure.
And failure is the operative word. Khachkar’s audit found that 11 of the 12 Body Parts are critically underperforming, including philanthropic support, religious content across the spectrum of media, regular Sunday attendance, school students, bible studies, management, and leadership training.
Many churches are scoring among the lowest tier of U.S. Christian institutions on essential metrics. The issue is not merely a lack of participation—but a lack of structure.
To reverse this, Khachkar is partnering with up to 37 pilot churches or ministries, each of which will receive $300,000 to $400,000 in strategic funding. But unlike traditional grants, these funds must be tied to clear reform plans, selected from an eight-activity Pilot Menu. Examples include launching high value-add role model targeted digital storytelling studios, creating weekly Bible teaching platforms, retraining leadership on time-resource allocation, and designing lay governance tracks for long-term leadership sustainability.
Each participating parish will also be supported with 5,000 hours of senior management and implementation support, guided by professionals experienced in organizational strategy, nonprofit management, and faith-based systems renewal.
The plan is data-driven, not aspirational. It aims to double weekly church attendance from 12,894 to 27,847, increase daily Bible readers from 1,000 to 41,423, and achieve a 6.1x SROI (social return on investment)—numbers that reflect a genuine cultural shift in engagement, not just attendance.
Crucially, Khachkar will also launch a major communications campaign under its “Good News” label, producing 25 times more digital content than all other U.S.-based Armenian Christian institutions combined.
This includes seven “Good News” workstreams: 1. Short-clips, 2. Podcasts, 3. Analyses, 4. Written Content, 5. Events, 6. News, 7. Music teachings designed to resonate with micro-targeted lost generations of Armenians.
In total, Khachkar’s $100 million plan delivers something no initiative has before: the funding, strategy, and systems to convert concern into action—and action into renewal. The Armenian Church may be in crisis, but with this initiative, it now has a roadmap to resurrection.”
