We appreciate the interest of Osborne and Tricker in our work on a factorial survey approach to the study of the social construction of non-profit organisational effectiveness. We welcome this opportunity to respond to their appraisal of our work, and to further the debate about conceptualising and researching the complex issue of non-profit organisational effectiveness. In their response to our recent paper, Osborne and Tricker take issue with our approach and sketch an alternative method for researching non-profit organisational effectiveness.

In this reply we first suggest that their criticisms reflect a different understanding of the goals of our paper than our own. Next we briefly review their proposed alternative in relation to some consequences of that alternative. We close with observations about promising lines for future research on non-profit organisational effectiveness.

This paper is an exploration of research funding by western, local and Islamic foundations in the Arab world. Arab and Islamic foundations supporting research present a very recent phenomenon, so their numbers are limited and basic institutional traditions are still being developed. At the same time, they do have their own ‘ideologies’ and their own experiences which are not the same as those of the West. The findings in this paper are largely drawn from three case studies of foundations in the Arab world. There are several differences among the cases, although all of them are acting as non-profit organisations funding research work and making grants to individuals and institutions. It is difficult to compare precisely the contribution of the three foundations in all aspects of grant-making, but we can build the comparison on the scope of activities and their final contributions in education and culture. This paper closes with a discussion of potential research agenda on the future role of foundations in this part of the world.