Google Groups that use collaborative inboxes often use these inboxes to receive questions. Collaborative inboxes allow a member of the Group to respond to submitted questions on behalf of the Group.

NOTE: To learn more about collaborative inboxes, view the Overview of Sharing Mail with Google Groups Collaborative Inboxes  article.

A Group can also be used to send a message directly to any individual. To learn how to use a Google Group to send a message to an individual not in the group, follow the steps listed below.

1. Configure your email account to send as the Group's email account.
2. Configure who can post to the group.  
   
   When sending an email to accounts outside of umd.edu, you would select Anyone on the web if you require the entire group to view an email reply.