With regard to programming forms, the term "community-based" is itself used in different ways in different circumstances. This variety of usages in part represents pedagogical or political differences. And in part it represents different regional traditions in adult education. Sometimes "community-based" designates programs on the basis of formal or structural characteristics. Non-profit independent literacy organizations with their own boards of directors are usually called community-based. The term is also applied to programs with links to other local governmental and non-governmental agencies, or programs that use volunteer tutors from the community they serve.

But more strongly, the term "community-based" designates substantive links of programs to communities, or control of programs by communities, in ways that go beyond structural arrangements. Programs in urban areas may be located in store-front settings or in public spaces such as community centres or libraries, and programs in rural areas with low population densities may use itinerant tutors or teachers. Some programs are directly operated by the organizations (e.g., trade unions, community centres) of which potential students are members. Some programs go beyond "public awareness" or publicity activities, and engage with neighbourhood networks to attract potential learners; francophone literacy organizations, for example, often combine awareness-building with program planning and student recruitment by conducting door-to-door surveys of learning needs and obstacles to study in French (especially outside Québec).

One Recommendation in the "Declaration from the Toronto Seminar" states that "Funding institutions must recognize and respect the autonomy of community-based literacy groups to determine the content, methodology and administration of their programs."¹⁷³ The Regroupement des Groupes Populaires en Alphabétisation du Québec defines popular literacy groups in various ways, firstly that they are "politically, educationally and administratively independent."¹⁷⁴ In practice, as argued above, autonomy and independence depend upon what institutional arrangements define the space in which programs work. They depend upon the ways in which governments devolve authority and resources to programs, or keep programs on a short tether.