HAVE YOU JOINED THE NFP* BRIGADE?

IT'S THE hottest day of the year but in a mews street outside Zuma in Knightsbridge there's no wilting of enthusiasm for a charity treasure hunt. Designer heels are clattering along the cobbles and the participants, from Lisa B and Jasmine Guinness to singer Mica Paris and designer Kelly Hoppen, are driven, not by the prospect of luxury giveaways, but by the possibility of hunting down a hidden cheque -- a donation to charity. A girls' night out in London is hardly complete these days without an element of philanthropy.

On the social scene, you can't move for women with a cause or, as they are more likely to term it today, a Not For Profit. While once it was all about waiting lists for a four-figure handbag, now it's about the number of It girls you have on the board of your NFP, on your JustGiving page and in your Facebook group.

How charity has changed. Just before the Lehman Brothers collapse last September, the joke at a charity dinner at the Banqueting House in Whitehall was that it had been "in aid of Matthew Williamson", such was the ubiquity of women in his Pounds 1,000 dresses. The excessive benefit galas (the networking venues of choice for Bernie Madoff ) with their ostentatious displays of giving may have offered salve for the souls of hedgies but the LED Flexible Strip Ribbon Series Ribbon 5050 new NFP gang have turned their backs on "spending to raise".

Even Tamara Mellon, until now defined by expensive high heels, has designed an NFP (well, 25 per cent NFP) series for her autumn collection. Jimmy Choo anticipates a waiting list and is keen (perhaps too keen) to point out that its charity of choice -- a refuge for African women -- is a cause that will particularly appeal to women. Companies know that charity now comes high on the list of customers' priorities.

Natalia Vodianova's Naked Heart charity raises money to build urban playgrounds in her native Russia. Vodianova, whose own childhood was tough, is a supermodel who can tap into the biggest brands on the planet -- Louis Vuitton recently wrote her a cheque for Pounds 30,000. Yet her foundation's most recent project, a heart T-shirt, has been done with a friend's kids shop , Caramel, in Notting Hill, and costs Pounds 25. As Caramel founder Eva Karayiannis points out: "She could have done a T-shirt with Prada but instead she chose to do a small project with us."

Which doesn't mean that today's NFPs won't use their positions and contacts books to practical effect and to open doors. Lisa B, the model and actress, is having a bring-and-buy sale in the autumn for her NFP, Mothers4Children, which she launched this year. But this is no school hall jumble sale -- Lisa has persuaded Selfridges to provide the venue and, at a dinner last Monday, urged friends to donate things they don't want. Selfridges for its part, has offered to double what she makes.

Someone who has made NFP a fulltime occupation is Carolina GonzalezBunster, a former investment banker with Goldman Sachs who was working in Dubai when the financial world crashed in autumn last year. "It seemed like the perfect time to think about where I was going and what I wanted to

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Continued from Page 27 be doing with my life," she says.

On 1 August, she will be walking 800 km from France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain in aid of her NFP, The Walkabout Foundation. Her motivation is twofold: the credit crunch has been a chance to fulfil a long-term ambition; and 14 years
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