Khachkar Studios Introduces New $10,000 EMPOW Awards for Empowering Armenian Christian Media

$250,000 for 2025 EMPOW Awards from the Historically Unprecedented $10+ Million "Good News" Support 

Listen to the podcast at https://khachkarstudios.com/podcast-Empow/

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- 

1. Khachkar Studios EMPOW Awards: Starting in June 2025, Khachkar Studios will grant $10,000 EMPOW (pronounced "M-pow") Awards for Empowering Armenian Christian media. $250,000 is allocated for 2025 EMPOW Awards from the Khachkar Studios' historically unprecedented $10+ million "Good News" support to increase the number of Armenian Faithful in the U.S. The $10,000 EMPOW Awards will be for "Good News" Armenian Christian media, including homilies, AI short-clips, and podcasts. Khachkar Studios hopes to grant the awards at least monthly and potentially weekly. Awardees may receive multiple EMPOW Awards.
   
   
2. EMPOW Five Traits: Awards will be based on five traits, which are referred to as EMPOW: E ‑ Engaging, M ‑ Motivational, P - Powerful, O - Originality, and W - Wisdom.
   
   
3. US$10+ Million Support: The EMPOW Awards are part of Khachkar Studios' historically unprecedented US$10+ million support for U.S. Armenian Pilot Churches and Ministries announced on 11 April 2025, which includes a focus on "Good News" Armenian Christian media. The $10,000 EMPOW Awards are supplemental to the $40,000 to $80,000 per church or ministry from the 8 Activities in the Pilot Menu. To learn more about the Khachkar Studios "Good News" Pilot, see the press release, podcast, and Briefing Packet #2: Pilots at https://khachkarstudios.com/pilot‑menu/.
   
   
4. Parable of the Talents: We at Khachkar Studios are guided in allocating our resources by the parable of the talents: "Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more."
   
   
5. Sharing the "Good News": Khachkar Studios will place award-winning Armenian Christian media on multiple news outlets and social media platforms. The top percentile of award winners will be included in instructional videos for Armenian Christian role models.
   
   
6. SROI and KPI #1: At Khachkar Studios, our Social Return on Investment (SROI) is defined as the increase in Key Performance Indicator #1 (KPI #1) – number of Non-Holiday Badarak Faithful ("The Faithful") – divided by the total investment. Currently, barely 3% of Armenians in the U.S. are Faithful, and Khachkar Studios' near-term goal is to see that increase to 6%.
   
   
7. Ecosystem Benchmarking: From an ecosystem benchmarking perspective, Khachkar Studios and its affiliates are projected to spend far greater than 200% more in supporting Armenian Church activities than iconic figures such as Mantashyants, Gulbenkian, Manoogian, Kerkorian, or Hovnanian – combined. During the past 23 years (2001 to 2023), the major U.S. Armenian philanthropists' foundations contributed only 2% of their $825 million total spending to Armenian religious initiatives, as reported in their U.S. 990 tax filings. This near-negligible percentage represents one of the 12 body parts in an Ecosystem that is currently underperforming – yet gifted with extraordinary potential – where the reality is that barely 3% of U.S. Armenians are Faithful. See Briefing Packet #3: EMPOW Awards at https://khachkarstudios.com/Empow-Briefing-Packet/.
   
   
8. About Khachkar Studios: Khachkar Studios is a multimedia studio that empowers Christian role models through "Good News" education-training-retention (E-T-R), guided by world-class benchmarking and management excellence. Khachkar Studios is an affiliate of the Charles & Agnes Kazarian Foundation, JI-Analytics, and Japonica Partners.

For more information about Khachkar Studios and its initiatives, including EMPOW Award nominations, contact:
www.khachkarstudios.com
[email protected]

SOURCE The Charles & Agnes Kazarian Foundation