Is it possible to send Notifications without instantiating a Workflow process

When we run a concurrent process there is an option to Notify people when the concurrent process completes (Concurrent Submission Screen-Options-Notify the following people).

When I received the notification I found there is a record in WF_NOTIFICATIONS with MESSAGE_TYPE=FNDCMMSG.

I found a Workflow called Concurrent Manager Message (Item Type=FNDCMMSG) in wf_item_types_vl and I was also able to load the workflow in Workflow builder and view it. But I did not find any instance of it in WF_ITEMS table.

1)Is it possible to send a workflow notification without instantiating the workflow.

2)What are the APIs that will allow me to do this.