> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.wegive.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Why Your Triggered Message Isn't Sending

> A self-service checklist for when a Triggered Message looks correctly set up but never fires — covering Live status, trigger and audience filters, and how WeGive picks a winner when more than one message is on the same trigger.

If you've set up a Triggered Message and it looks right but nothing is
going out, work through this checklist in order — each step covers a
different, common reason a message can silently not send.

## 1. Check the message's status is Live

A Triggered Message only sends when its status is set to **Live**. New
messages are created as **Draft** by default and won't fire until you
explicitly switch them over. This is the single most common reason a
message "never sends" — double-check the status before looking at
anything else.

## 2. Review the trigger filters (the "when" conditions)

Every Triggered Message has its own trigger conditions — the rules that
decide which occurrences of the event actually count. If a condition is
too narrow, or references a value that doesn't match how the event
actually happens in your account, the message can sit Live and
correctly attached to the right event, but never actually have anything
qualify. Open the message, review each trigger condition, and confirm
it matches real data from a recent occurrence of that event.

## 3. Review the audience filters (the "who" conditions) — separately

Trigger conditions and audience conditions are two independent checks,
and both have to pass for a message to send. It's easy to confirm the
trigger side looks right and stop there — but an audience filter that
doesn't match any of your actual supporters will block the send just as
completely as a bad trigger condition. Review the audience rules on
their own, even if the trigger conditions already look correct.

## 4. Only one message fires per event, by default

If you have more than one Triggered Message set up on the same event
(for example, a specific message for one case and a more general
message as a fallback), WeGive only sends ONE of them per event — it
does not send every message whose conditions happen to be true. WeGive
checks your messages on that event in a set order (their **hierarchy**)
and sends the first one that matches; a message later in the order is
skipped once an earlier one has already won, even if that later
message's own conditions are also true.

This means: if the message you expect to fire isn't first in the
hierarchy, and an earlier message on the same event is matching first,
your message is being correctly skipped, not broken. Check your
message's position in the hierarchy relative to any other messages on
the same event, and reorder them (or narrow the earlier message's
conditions) if the wrong one is winning.

**A message with no trigger conditions set at all counts as matching
everything.** If an earlier message in the hierarchy has no trigger
conditions configured, it will win over every more specific message
below it in the order, regardless of how carefully those other messages
are set up. If a more specific message never fires and a broader
message on the same event always does instead, check whether that
broader message actually has trigger conditions — not just whether
they're narrow.

## Do you actually need two messages to send at once?

If your goal is for two different messages to both go out off the same
event — say, a donor-facing thank-you and a separate internal
notification, each with its own rules — ordinary Triggered Messages on
the same event won't do this; only one will ever send. For this, use a
**Journey** instead: a Journey can dispatch your normal triggered
message and separately route a second, differently-ruled send off the
same starting event, without the "only one wins" behavior described
above.

## Quick checklist

1. Is the message's status **Live**?
2. Do the trigger conditions actually match a recent real occurrence of
   the event?
3. Do the audience conditions, checked separately, match your real
   supporters?
4. Is another message on the same event ahead of this one in hierarchy,
   and is it matching first (especially one with no trigger conditions
   at all)?
5. If you need two independent sends off one event, is a Journey the
   right tool instead of two Triggered Messages?

***

*Still not firing after working through this list? Reach out to the
WeGive support team with the message name and the event it's attached
to, and we'll dig in with you.*


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.