The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints heightened PR efforts in the spring of last year to answer the myths about their neutrality in the 2008 presidential election. They wanted to express this excessively because Mormon, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney recently announced that he raised $21 million dollars in campaign money, which is far more than any other Republican candidate. Micheal Otterson, media relations director for the 12.6 million member church, states "We have to walk a very fine line to stay away from political issues," "But it is clear that the profile of the church will be raised during this (campaign) period. All of the things that are going on will serve as catalysts to raise questions about us and who we really are". The church also increased PR efforts in light of the negative reputation the Mormon religion carries.
I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did a good job of dealing with the situation as soon as it happened. They knew that in the coming months the large amount of campaign funds that Romney has would draw attention, so they got rid of their old media relations group and made sure the public knew they were neutral in the presidential race. It also gave them an opportunity to take advantage of the extra publicity to clean up their reputation.
I believe that this crisis falls under a environmental force that they couldn't help from happening (otherwise known as the business and economic crisis category), but as Fearn-Banks states, as long as you contain, recover, and learn from the issue at hand the crisis can almost be viewed as a good thing. Mitt Romney running for president is free publicity for the church and is giving them an opportunity to tackle other issues that they face, but if they weren't so prompt about stating that they were neutral in the political race the outcome might of turned the other way.
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