Elder Holland, a former BYU president, suggested using the alumni organization of the university's business school, the BYU Management Society, to build a network for Romney, according to the documents. Such a plan would give Romney an established infrastructure — the alumni group has 5,500 members in about 40 U.S. chapters — for raising money and generating support.

Eight days later, Stirling, Spencer Zwick, a top political aide to Romney, and the governor's brother, Scott Romney, held a dinner at a private Salt Lake City club for other prominent Mormons, where they discussed the effort further. Among those invited were Steve Albrecht, associate dean of the BYU business school, the Marriott School of Management.

On Oct. 9, Albrecht and Ned Hill, the business school dean, sent an e-mail to 50 Management Society members and 100 members of the school's National Advisory Council asking them to join them in supporting Romney's potential bid for the presidency. Hill and Albrecht signed the message with their official BYU titles, sent the e-mail from a BYU e-mail address, and began the message "Dear Marriott School Friend."

"We are writing to you as a friend to see if you have any interest in helping Governor Romney by volunteering to serve as a Community or Neighborhood Chair," Hill and Albrecht wrote in the e-mail, which was reviewed by the Globe. "Governor Romney's chances for success are significantly enhanced and energized by people, such as you, who are willing to help him at the grass-roots level throughout the United States."

Anyone interested in helping Romney was asked to send a note to Albrecht at his BYU e-mail address.

Federal restrictions

Both the church and BYU, as tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations, are prohibited by federal law from advocating on behalf of a particular candidate or political party.

The church's director of media relations, Michael R. Otterson, called "nonsense" the suggestion that church leaders were working to promote Romney.

"The Church goes to considerable lengths to emphasize to its members the institutional neutrality of the Church on partisan matters," Otterson wrote in an e-mail to the Globe Tuesday.

Otterson insisted Hinckley knew nothing about the effort by Romney's team to build a network of supporters.

Otterson said the Sept. 19 meeting that Holland hosted for Gardner, Stirling and Josh Romney was merely "a handshake and a chat, literally a courtesy call."

Gardner, an acquaintance of Elder Holland's, requested the meeting, Otterson said. "This was simply a response to an appointment requested by an old friend," he said.