Social cooperatives in Italy have seen a considerable growth and this development can be analyzed according to several complementary readings. In its first part, the article starts from a "traditional" analysis presenting the general data of the Italian social cooperatives on the basis of the last survey presented by the national institute of the statistical (Istat) and analyses the reasons behind the birth and the evolution of these organizations. The second part describes briefly the factors of diversity that are at the origin of the evolutionary trajectory of the social cooperatives. The third part concentrates on a particular variable, the "multistakeholder" structure, which is the diffusion in the social cooperatives of open experiences of governance to different types of members. This part constitutes the main object of this contribution. The fourth and last part contains various synthetic reflections aiming to determine some"trajectories of development" of social cooperatives in the short and mid terms.