Data-Driven Mission - Khachkar Studios Launches Historically Unprecedented $10+ Million Performance-Based Pilot for Churches
Support A1+!A new philanthropic frontier has opened for faith-based nonprofits. On April 11, 2025, Khachkar Studios announced a US$10+ million pilot program offering performance-based financial support to 37 U.S. Armenian churches. The initiative seeks to demonstrate that Armenian churches can — and should — be held to high standards of measurable impact.
At the center of the pilot is a clear objective: increase the number of Non-Holiday Badarak Faithful (“The Faithful”), a group that currently includes only 13,000 Armenian Americans — just 3% of the diaspora. This attendance gap places Armenian churches among the lowest-performing Orthodox communities in the U.S., according to 2024 data compiled by Khachkar Studios.
Churches participating in the pilot will be assessed using two core tools: KPI #1 (growth in “The Faithful”) and SROI (Social Return on Investment). Every decision — from which outreach events to host, to how to train church leaders — is framed around one key question: What is the SROI, and how does it rank among benchmarked results?
Annual support between $40,000 and $80,000 will fund eight strategic activities detailed in the April 2025 Pilot Briefing Packet. These include Bible study expansion, community home visits, content creation, and Good News media campaigns — all designed to increase participation in church life.
The initiative also tackles a major nonprofit challenge: underfunded communications. Khachkar Studios will invest in seven media workstreams — from podcasts to music — with a total media spend that exceeds the combined promotional budgets of all other Armenian churches in the U.S. by more than 25 times.
To support ease of execution, each church will implement its activities with just six hours of shared weekly effort — aided by mobile tools and streamlined training.
Khachkar Studios is an affiliate of the Charles & Agnes Kazarian Foundation, JI-Analytics, and Japonica Partners. Their initiative reflects a growing trend in the nonprofit world: integrating business analytics with mission-oriented objectives to drive transformational change.
By treating spiritual engagement as a measurable outcome, the studio is redefining faith-based impact. Nonprofits in all sectors may take note.
