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The Act contributed to the fall of the Polish League and other Polish organisations. Only a few of them (landowners’ agricultural societies of the Scientific Help Society) managed to survive the difficult period of Prime Minister Otto von Manteuffel’s rule (1850-1858). At the end of the 1850s, when the Prussian authorities eased the administrative pressure as part of liberalising political life, new organisations emerged and existing ones started to develop in the Grand Duchy of Poznań. Firstly, there was the Central Economic Society, established in 1861, which gathered together landowners’ agricultural societies in poviats. The Society focused on those economic affairs related to the interests of landowners.  Organisations of townspeople were developing very slowly, especially outside of larger cities. Although the Industrial Society was founded in 1849 in Poznań, a larger number of such organisations were established only as a result of a wave of national repression in the 1870s. The organisations were mostly composed of merchants, craftsmen and journeymen, but they also included priests, doctors and lawyers, who were often their leaders. Their core activity was “promoting morality, education and welfare” among the petty bourgeoisie by organising specialist courses, lectures, dancing events and excursions, establishing self-assistance loan facilities, etc. At the end of the 19th century, a tendency towards centralisation of the movement appeared among these dispersed associations. In July 1895, delegates, who came to Poznań, agreed to establish the Association of Industrial Societies in the German Reich, which was to support local societies in their activities aimed at “improving the handicraft, industry and profitability”. Initially, the Association grew very slowly, it became more dynamic only in the years preceding the outbreak of World War I. At the beginning of 1914, it included 163 societies, which were jointly composed of nearly 11 thousand members.

An important and also one of the crucial segments of the Poznań organisational system were commercial enterprises. The Savings & Loan Society established in 1850 in Śrem is considered to be the oldest one. The Loan Society for Poznań Industrialists, founded in 1861 on the initiative of Hipolit Cegielski, was better known. As time passed, more and more companies were established in the form of people’s banks and loan&savings associations, composed of merchants, craftsmen, peasants, priests etc. They accumulated savings and granted cheap loans to its members, mostly for the purchase of raw materials and tools. Priests Augustyn Szamarzewski and Piotr Wawrzyniak, later patrons of the Association of Commercial and Economic Companies for the Grand Duchy of Poznań and West Prussia, had a considerable share in their development.  In 1913, there were 221 Polish people's banks, with 140 thousand members, in the Prussian Partition. 

Parish agricultural circles were set up for the peasants. The first one was founded in 1862 by Julian Karasiewicz in Piaseczno, West Prussia. It became an example for similar initiatives, also in the region of Poznań. The patrons of the associations were landowners and priests, who, in a period when political parties were taking shape, inhibited in a way, the political maturity of peasants. The rapid increase in the number of circles in the region of Poznań was a result of the activity of their long-term patron (until 1901) Maksymilian Jackowski. Each of the circles held, on average, 6-8 meetings a year, participated in by 50-75% of its members. Topics discussed at the meetings included land cultivation techniques, cattle and pig farming, agricultural accounting, horticulture, apiculture, etc. Other issues that were discussed included the raising of children in a national and Catholic spirit, elections to the Prussian parliament, etc. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a dense network of 395 agricultural circles with, jointly, 14500 members. Participation in the circles’ activities taught their members organisational culture and the skill of public activity. It was also an elementary school of engagement for emancipated peasants.

Pope Leon XIII’s encyclical Rerum novarum, published in 1891, encouraged people to establish Catholic worker societies. Although the first worker society in the Poznań region was set up only in 1893 (at the “fara” parish in Poznań), in the following years, thanks to the involvement of the clergy, the Catholic social movement started to develop very fast. In 1900, the Union of Catholic Societies of Polish Workers, including 40 societies, was established, whereas the beginning of the 20th century brought their further growth. Before World War I, the Union consisted of 276 societies, which jointly included approximately 31 thousand members. The activity of these Catholic societies (or Christian unions) of workers mostly consisted of combating socialism, promoting a conciliatory attitude towards employers among the proletariat, strengthening their religious beliefs and relations with the Church and pursuing educational activities among workers and their children, in the national and Catholic spirit.