Exploring Life & Business with Carolyn Saunders of Changing Tides Foundation

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carolyn Saunders.

Hi Carolyn, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
The road from fashion journalism to running a small nonprofit wasn’t linear.

I moved to New York City to attend NYU’s Journalism program at the age of 19. In the early Aughts, my dream was to become a fashion editor at Vogue, surrounded by beautiful people and glamorous things. While I did intern at Hearst and The New York Times and worked freelance at Conde Nast, my path post-graduation quickly veered into fashion-adjacent beauty industry, where I worked at NARS Cosmetics and then L’Oreal for over 8 years.

My tenure in the beauty industry spanned film & photography production, project management, consumer data strategy and CRM. My days ranged from producing ASMR-inducing How-To videos for new makeup products, to figuring out what data I could use to encourage first time purchases, nurture repeat buyers, and create loyal brand advocates (in a nutshell, lifecycle marketing).

I learned a lot during my time in the pre-Covid corporate world and am grateful to have had the opportunity to work at some incredible brands.

During Covid, my husband and I made a spontaneous move from New York to La Jolla, and life slowed down a bit – in a good way! I became pregnant with my son, and during maternity leave realized that while I had experienced incredible professional growth, I was ready for a positive change with better work life balance than what I had been previously accustomed to.

I left my Senior Manager in Consumer Data Strategy & CRM role at Urban Decay in the fall of 2022 and pivoted into purpose-driven work with a common theme: the ocean. This move wasn’t entirely out of left field, as I’ve always loved both fashion & luxury as well as the ocean & nature equally (call this a dual personality if you will!). In fact, when I was in high school, I spent a semester living on a tall ship with other high school students and sailed halfway around the world. This experience had a profound impact on my life, and further cemented my love for the ocean, as well as in immersing myself in cultures different than my own.

I mentored with a startup accelerator called Start Blue, a program jointly run by UCSD Rady School of Management and Scripps Institute of Oceanography, where I worked closely with early-stage start-ups to help them understand how to think about and communicate with their customers (both B2B and B2C).

In 2023, I joined the board of a nonprofit called Changing Tides Foundation, whose mission is to enable underserved young women to build confidence through mentorship, education, and the transformative power of surfing. I really loved enabling young women with the opportunity to develop a connection with the ocean and witnessing the positive change that occurred when they left everything going on in their lives on land behind as they stepped into the ocean and learned to ride their very first waves. The position of Executive Director became available at the beginning of 2025, and I officially stepped into the role in January of 2025, which is what I am doing today.

The nonprofit space has been a huge and wonderful learning opportunity for me. Working in a purpose-driven role is a completely different headspace; it requires working more from the heart and being passionate instead of basing decisions solely around metrics. Of course, the delicate balance with a nonprofit is that it is still a business at the end of the day, in that funds need to be raised and strategic decisions about the strategic direction of the organization still need to be made.

As I look to the future, I intend on continuing my involvement with Changing Tides Foundation, as well as incorporating my love of fashion and design into my daily life again. Southern California is such a dynamic place, with an “anything is possible” mentality, so I am very excited to continue to create my own path.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have always been someone who goes with the flow. I believe that the right opportunities present themselves when the time is right. I believe in manifesting a vision or a dream, and once you start projecting that energy into the universe, opportunities will come to you. Every job I’ve had has always come to me once I’ve begun manifesting for it.

That being said, I am originally Canadian, and despite attending college in the US, I had a really difficult time securing work visas for the areas in which I wanted to work.

As a result, that’s the reason why I haven’t had a linear career path and have held many different types of roles. Ultimately, I think that my varied experience has been a benefit to the role I am currently in, which is leading a nonprofit. I have to wear many different hats each day and be constantly switching gears.

If I could change one thing about my experience, it would be to let go of the fear I had when I was first starting out, because if I lost a job, I also lost my work visa. That made me operate from a place of fear, instead of pushing the boundaries in my work.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Changing Tides Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that was founded in 2016 with the mission of enabling underserved young women to build confidence through mentorship, education, and the transformative power of surfing. Our largest programming happens in San Diego County, but we have partnered with trusted nonprofits in several international countries to offer our program to teen girls around the world.

Changing Tides Foundation was founded by a group of female surfers and friends who were living together on the North Shore of Oahu, and has a large following around Southern California and internationally. In addition to our programming with teen girls, we also hold a handful of impactful community events throughout the year, where all are welcome. Last year, we held a women’s surf film evening at a theater in San Diego and had over 250 people attend. People even came from as far as the Central Coast!

We also have a strong track record of content production, both in film and photography. Our most recent short film, which highlights three women in El Salvador who are doing incredible work in their communities to uplift women, has been shown at several film festivals around the world, including winning best short film at the SURFALORUS film festival this past summer. The film is called Marea, and is available to watch on our YouTube channel.

Most recently, we traveled back to the North Shore this past fall, and gathered a group of 15 waterwomen from the island; among the group were free divers and surfers. Over the course of three days, we worked with Bryanna Bradley, an incredibly talented photographer, to capture the story of the women in the ocean, and embracing their most powerful and vulnerable selves. The most impactful shoot was done nude, shot at the beach and while surfing, and was a very empowering experience for everyone involved.

What sets Changing Tides Foundation apart is the strength of our community around the world and how strongly our mission resonates with our supporters. We empower not just the teen girls we impact through our programming, but also an entire demographic of adult women globally.

We are always looking for brands and individuals with whom our mission resonates for future collaboration and partnership opportunities.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
My favorite childhood memory is of the summers I spent at my family’s lakehouse in an area called Muskoka, in Ontario Canada. I would spend the entire summer there, and would spend all day in the water, swimming, waterskiing, wakeboarding, and as I got older, sailing at the local sailing club. The community of friends I made who were also there for the entire summer are some of my best friends to this day, and the shared bond of being able to spend our formative years in such a special environment still resonates.

There was a lot of freedom at a young age; we went everywhere by boat and would be out until dinnertime, inventing watersports, cliff jumping, and boating to one another’s homes. That type of freedom wouldn’t be possible in a different setting, and I’m incredible grateful to have had access to such a special place.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.changingtidesfoundation.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/changingtidesfoundation/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-saunders-50566242/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/changingtidesfoundation

Image Credits
Bryanna Bradley for the images of the adult women

Jianca Lazarus for the images of the younger girls in bathing suits

Lauren Hensgens for the images of the girls in wetsuits