Falaah Falaah AI

Messages · Two-Way Conversations

Start a two-way conversation with anyone, one person or a small group, chosen by name, role, department, or segment, across email, SMS, and WhatsApp.

Messages is where you start and hold two-way conversations. Unlike a broadcast, a message opens a thread the recipient can reply to, and their reply lands back in your unified inbox. Use it to reach one person directly, loop in a small group, or pick recipients by their role, department, or audience segment. Every conversation stays connected to the person’s record so you always have context.

When to Use Messages

Reach for Messages whenever you want a reply. If you don’t need a reply, you’re posting a notice or running a broadcast, see Messages vs Broadcasts vs Internal Announcements to pick the right tool.

You want to… Use
Ask a donor a question and get an answer Messages
Check in with one volunteer Messages
Coordinate a small group of 3–5 people Messages
Post a staff-wide notice (no replies needed) Internal Announcements
Send a tracked appeal to a donor segment Broadcasts

Starting a Conversation

  1. Go to Communications → Messages.
  2. Click New Message (the compose window opens).
  3. Add recipients (see Choosing Recipients below).
  4. Pick the channel, or let Muin choose the recipient’s preferred one.
  5. Write your message, or use AI or voice drafting.
  6. Click Send.

The conversation appears in your inbox immediately. When the recipient replies, the thread updates and you’re notified.

Choosing Recipients

You can address a message four ways: mix and match as needed:

Method What it does Example
By name Search any contact, member, or employee in your directory “Sarah Ahmed”
By role Everyone holding a role All “Board Members”
By department Everyone in a team or department The “Finance” team
By segment A saved audience segment “Lapsed donors – 2024”

Messages is designed for 1:1 and small-group conversations. When you pick a role, department, or segment, Muin expands it to the individual people so each can reply into the same thread. For a large one-way send to a donor segment, use a Broadcast instead: it’s built for scale and adds tracking and unsubscribe handling.

Channel-Aware Sending

Each message goes out on a real channel, and Messages adapts to what’s connected and what the recipient prefers:

Channel Notes
Email Default for most contacts; replies thread back into the inbox
SMS For contacts with a verified, opted-in mobile number
WhatsApp Requires a connected WhatsApp Business number

If you don’t pick a channel, Muin uses the recipient’s preferred channel where one is set, falling back to email. The reply you receive comes back on the same channel and lands in the same conversation.

AI and Voice Drafting

You don’t have to write from scratch:

  • AI draft: Describe what you want to say and Muin drafts it for you. Drafts are grounded in your own records, the recipient’s history, your events, and your documents, never invented. See Grounded AI drafts for how provenance works.
  • Voice draft: Dictate your message and Muin transcribes and cleans it up. Useful on mobile or when you’re on the move.

You always review and edit before sending: AI prepares the draft, you stay in control of what goes out.

Replies and the Unified Inbox

Every message you send becomes a conversation in the unified inbox:

  • Replies appear in the same thread, regardless of channel.
  • You can assign a conversation to a teammate, tag it, set priority, or snooze it.
  • Internal notes let your team discuss a conversation privately: notes are never sent to the recipient.

Because Messages is two-way, it participates in SLA tracking and escalation workflows, so a conversation that needs a reply doesn’t get lost.

Every message leaves through one send path, so the same three things are true of all of them.

  • Your branding is applied for you. Email carries your organization’s standard header and footer from your brand kit, you do not paste a logo or a mailing address into the body.
  • Consent is checked before the send. A person who has switched off Marketing & announcement emails in their portal, or whose address is suppressed after a hard bounce, is skipped rather than mailed. That is one master control, not a list of per-topic toggles.
  • A reply-needed message is still a message. Consent governs marketing and announcements; a direct reply to someone who contacted you, or a receipt for something they bought, is transactional and is not gated by the marketing control.

You can see a person’s resolved contact status, per channel and with its provenance, on their record in the CRM. Staff can record an opt-out on someone’s behalf but never an opt-in for SMS, a text opt-in has to come from the person.

When an address stops working

If an email hard-bounces, Muin tells your owners and admins, and the person’s record shows a delivery problem banner listing the bounced address and the messages that never arrived. Fix email on that banner takes a corrected address, clears the bounce suppression on the old one, and offers to resend the missed messages. Until that happens, further sends to that address are skipped on purpose.

When it goes wrong

What you see What to do
The recipient never replies and you suspect it never arrived Open Communications → Email Activity Log and search their name or address. The row tells you whether it sent, bounced or was skipped.
A delivery problem banner on the person’s record Their address is bouncing. Use Fix email on the banner to correct it and resend what was missed.
SMS is not offered for a contact SMS needs a mobile number and an opt-in from that person. You cannot add the opt-in for them.
WhatsApp is not offered No WhatsApp Business number is connected. See WhatsApp Setup.
You picked a segment and the message went nowhere A large one-way send belongs in a Broadcast. Messages expands a segment to individuals, so a very large segment is the wrong tool here.
You need to stop a message that has not gone yet Open Scheduled Messages and stop the queued row.

Next Steps