Purpose This paper analyzes the "crafts" of governance within social and solidarity economy (SSE) cultural organizations, considering formal and informal rules, to support their project of democratization of arts and culture and more generally of cultural democracy. Our hypothesis is that it is through participatory and democratic governance that SSE can have a transformative role. Design/methodology/approach This paper builds upon a qualitative, multiple case studies of three SSE organizations in the performing arts and audiovisual production in France. Although different in age, size, and legal form, they all experiment a more participative governance system, not without tensions, to face deep institutional changes in their environment. Findings Our results show that legal forms from the SSE are necessary safeguards but not sufficient to effectively implement a democratic governance beyond the “one member, one vote” principle. Democratic governance is supported by both formal and informal rules. By experimenting innovative participative and democratic governance rules, these organizations contribute to the transformation of practices in the cultural field (democratization of art and culture) but also in society at large by fostering cultural democracy. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature on SSE and on governance by enlarging the analysis beyond the board of directors and the statutory rules. Applying the approach of collective action and reasonable values developed by Commons to SSE, it shows that participatory governance cannot be based on an ideal or a choice of pre-established values and principles but must leave room for creativity and representations of stakeholders to support transformation of practices within the cultural field but also externally by increasing cultural democracy. Research limitations/implications Building upon three case studies, this exploratory work stresses important issues that are worth to explore on a larger scale to understand by which levers SSE can play a transformative role in the cultural field.