PR: Investor & Government Relations

We already have explored Hillsong Church's media relations from the inside out, now it is time to go deeper. Normally is very hard to talk about investor relations when your subject is a church, but the Hillsong Church shows that they care about it. They provide on the church's website a financial charter to communicate about their finances. In this charter the organization is described as a non-profit organization governed by their board of directors, also informing that their annual record is audited and lodged with regulatory bodies every year and also mentioning the internal controls applied, always offering an open book policy allowing members/investors to analyze these annual financial records, promoting a two-way communication in order to have a positive corporate reputation.

Source:  http://myhillsong.com/financial-charter   

The Hillsong Church also shows a big concern about their government relations. Hillsong's website informs that their governance and policies are based on Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), principles of good corporate governance, best practice recommendation in addition to biblical values. In other words, the Hillsong Church is following all the government’s principles to have an organization with a good government relation.

As a non-profit organization Hillsong Church manages the business process producing an overall positive impact in society by specifying in the organization's website their ethical standard and values, conflicts of interest, recognizing and managing the risks, opting for a political impartiality and specially their responsibility to the community informing the church's privacy policy, donation policy and occupational health and safety. This way getting ready to manage the issues before they happen.

Source:http://myhillsong.com/corporate-goverance

Source:http://myhillsong.com/corporate-goverance

Hillsong Church has shown a good investors and governments relation so far, but there is always a place for improvement. Considering all the tools applied by the organization to work on these relationships, some extra tools would be useful to improve, for example the use some advanced tools (ex: road show, conference call, etc), the use of an agenda setting and specify better the organization crisis communication plan about how would be their response to a crisis and how to get recovered from it, always remembering to apply to most important strategies during a crises: be honest, be prompt, be constant, be accessible, be direct and always use multi-platforms to communicate.

For further information about Hillsong Church's investor relation and government relation visit the website: http://myhillsong.com

For last but not least, join Hillsong Church and World Vision's fight to help many desperate lives in Philippines. If you want to be part of this fight, click here to donate now. 

Source: https://hillsong.com/en/bwc/philippines

The Kick-Off

This blog "From the inside out" will explore a different side of the Hillsong Church: the corporate face of the brand. The Hillsong Church is a very large and influent ministry in different countries of the world, and based on their impact in so many people's lives I thought that this could be a great opportunity to get to know more about their relationship with their members, fans and employees/volunteers and also could be a big chance to find out more about their structure.

The first time I've heard about the Hillsong Church was in a few years ago in Brazil when I listened to their song on the radio "From the inside out" and got impacted by the lyrics of this song. Later that day I searched more about this church on the Internet and ended up learning more about Hillsong Church's history and mission.

Source: http://www.jesushoje.com/hillsong

According to the Hillsong Church Website, their mission is to reach and influence the world by building a large Christ-centered, Bible-based church, changing mindsets and empowering people to lead and impact in every sphere of life, so in other words, their ministry target is to reach the world based on their lectures, songs and meetings where they minister through the Bible passages about Christ's teaching and use this teachings to impact people's lives.

Source: http://www.moneglisehillsong.fr/en/blogs/une-lettre-de-brian-bobbie-vision-2012/

Brian Houston and his wife Bobbie Houston had their first service in 1983 in a school in Sydney, Australia. After this first service more and more people started to attend the first steps of the Hillsong Church. A few years later in 1986, they had the 1st Hillsong Conference. The Hillsong Church praise and worship meeting outgrew and moved to bigger homes in the following years.  Always innovating, in 1997 Bobbie lead the 1st Colour Conference only for woman in Sydney. The church was always growing and getting known by the government, so in 1998 Brian spoke at the opening of the Australian Parliament. In 2002 the new Hillsong Convention Centre was inaugurated in Baulkham Hills. Today,  in 2013, the Hillsong Church is still growing and spreading their mission in the whole world, with churches in 12 different locations: Australia, New York City, Los Angeles, London, Moscow, South Africa, Paris, Stockholm, Germany, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Barcelona. This way meeting the vision of the church of spreading their teaching based in the Bible through out the world.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/christian-music-it-s-what-you-really-should-be-listening-to

The Hillsong Church has their services in all this different locations a few times a week, but beside the regular services, the church also promotes youth meetings, concerts, retreats, social work, and different community activities always promoting their vision. The Hillsong Church music ministry is lead by the Hillsong United, a band who has their songs sang in different languages in different churches around the world. So beside their services, the leaders of the church also offer their members/fans/followers CDs, DVDs of the band and of their services, books of encouragement and testimonies to keep promoting their message. This products are sold through the Internet so they can be found easily in a variety of countries, this way they keep multiplying their members and fans from different countries, languages and cultures.

Source: http://thechristianmanifesto.com/archives/6966

The Hillsong Church is a great brand to work with first because they use their tools to do good to others, to help to save lives through their messages, songs and social work, and second because they know how to communicate with their members/fans with different social medias, been always accessible. As mentioned at Chapter 1 of the book "Digital Strategies for a Powerful Corporate Communications" when the author mentions the Web 2.0 Era where the investments in social media would spend, changing the business environment and innovating the brand identity in a digital content, were applied by the Hillsong Church, making their ministry being more opened, and this openness made of them more likable and helped them to connect with their fans and improve their needs, learning from this experience how to grow and share quicker their message through out the world. These are some of the reasons why the Hillsong Church became so powerful and so loved for so many people with different stories and culture in different parts of the globe.    

Just in case, if you want to watch the video of the song that named the blog with, here it is: