Many literacy organizations were developed outside the educational system. "Community-based" programs were most numerous in Québec, as groupes populaires en alphabétisation. In Ontario cities, a number of literacy programs with autonomous boards were developed, sometimes in conjunction with settlement houses or libraries. In several other provinces, programs outside educational institutions were begun by volunteer bodies, libraries, and community centres. Laubach Literacy Councils were developed in the Maritime provinces (the first in Lunenburg in 1970), anglophone Quebec and Ontario; in 1981 Laubach Literacy of Canada was organized autonomously from its American parent. Frontier College, which had throughout the century placed "labourer-teachers" in the hinterlands, shifted its emphasis to the "urban frontier," and to programming — often literacy programming — with poor people and ex-offenders.

Program development up to the mid-1980s usually depended on committed individuals in government, educational institutions, and community organizations, as well as on local or provincial adult education traditions. Literacy programs could be characterized in 1983 as "marginal and experimental,"²⁴ and development was quite uneven across the country. Nevertheless, there were incremental gains in overall levels of programming. In a small number of provinces, beginning with British Columbia and Québec around 1980, explicit government policies were written that supported adult literacy and basic education.²⁵

Coalitions and associations were organized to develop networks among practitioners, to publish program resources, and to encourage government support for literacy. At a national conference in 1977, organized in part by World Literacy of Canada, the Movement for Canadian Literacy (MCL) was formed.²⁶ The momentum of this conference stimulated a follow-up conference the following year, and the formation, in the west, of provincial literacy and adult basic education associations in the late 1970s and early 1980s — the Adult Basic Education Association of British Columbia, the Alberta Association for Adult Literacy, and the Saskatchewan Adult Basic Education Association. Among francophones, l'Institut canadien d'éducation des adultes, and le Regroupement des groupes populaires en alphabétisation du Québec, and later la Fédération des francophones hors Québec, engaged in networking and advocacy activities. Among their affiliated programs, Frontier College and Laubach Literacy of Canada maintained links. Practitioner-produced journals, such as the Movement for Canadian Literacy's Literacy/Alphabétisation, British Columbia's Groundwork, and Québec's Alpha-Liaison and Alpha-populaire (now Le monde alphabétique), kept up a lively debate about issues in literacy when few other forums were available.