Northern communities, such as Brigham City, a number of which already had well-developed community cooperatives, merely changed the name of their organization and continued business as usual. Many of the city congregations in Salt Lake, Ogden, and Provo, after some stumbling, attempted to found a manufacturing enterprise, contributing capital and labor to establish a community-owned meat market, hat factory, or soap factory, for example. Yet city bishops were perhaps of all Young's lieutenants most tied to the Gentile economy, and most were not eager to lead their flock into the United Order. Only two or three of the city wards formed viable organizations.

The more common orders were in the congregations of rural towns, such as at St. George, where land and farm equipment were placed under the direction of an elected committee which supervised production. The committees decided such matters as which crops to grow, who should work at which tasks, and to what extent members would be allowed to move or work outside the order. There was, however, no effort to prescribe common dress or uniform housing, to eat at a common table, or to regiment personal lives, beyond seeing that the work due the order was accomplished. Moreover, as the orders began to disband in the fall of 1874, the members seemed to have no difficulty identifying the property they had contributed.