The structure of organizations offering adult education in Germany is extremely heterogeneous concerning factors such as the legal structure, the financial basis, the internal organizational structure, the situation of the staff, the understanding of education or training, the provisions and the target groups, or the position in the field of further training. After giving a brief insight in this situation, this contribution will focus on changes of governance strategies in this field of education. On the macro level, a decreasing influence of the federal government and the Länder level can be shown. Instead of legal regulations, accreditation procedures gain importance. Besides this, publicly funded projects, including European funding, become an important actor instead of continuous public support. On the organizational level, this situation results in frequent reorganization processes and a higher commitment to economic processes. Networking can be identified also as a new governance strategy, which is supported by public financiers.