A quick guide to how Moral Fabric describes who does what.
In most organisations, people have like "Marketing Manager," and what the job actually involves lives in someone's head or a stale job description. Moral Fabric uses instead.
A role is a clearly described slice of responsibility. One person can hold several roles across different teams, and one role can be held by several people.
When roles are explicit, you don't need a manager in the middle to coordinate every handoff. People can act because expectations are visible.
— a short, recognisable label for the role. Verbs or descriptive nouns work well. Examples: "Newsletter Editor," "Treasurer," "Welcome Buddy."
— one sentence describing what the world would look like if this role did its job perfectly. Example: "Our supporters feel seen, informed, and inspired to act."
— the ongoing things others can expect from whoever holds this role. Each one starts with a verb. Examples: "Sending the weekly newsletter," "Responding to supporter questions within 48 hours," "Reporting open and click rates each month."
(optional) — anything this role controls exclusively. Others ask permission to change it. Example: "The contact database."
Most people hold more than one role. Someone might be in the Outreach team, in the People team, and in the weekly all-hands. Each role moves independently — you can pick one up or pass it on without rewriting anyone's job description.
When someone asks you to do something, they're engaging your , not you personally. When you ask someone for something, you're talking to their role too.
This separates work disagreements ("does this fall under your role?") from personal ones ("are you being difficult?"). If you're unsure whether something is yours to handle, check the role description first.
This model comes from , an organisational operating system used by many self-managed organisations. You don't need to adopt all of Holacracy to use Moral Fabric — but the role / purpose / accountabilities structure is the small piece that pays off immediately. See Holacracy: How It Works for the full picture.