Creator Spotlight: Tia Payne
Creator Spotlight: Tia Payne
Founder, Legacy31 | Faith-Driven Leader, Survivor-Advocate, Author & Speaker
About Tia
Tia Payne is a faith-driven leader, survivor-advocate, and founder of Legacy31 — an initiative dedicated to holistic healing and identity restoration. With nearly two decades of experience serving survivors of gender-based violence, Tia has built her career at the intersection of advocacy, leadership, and spiritual formation.
As an African American woman, her work is shaped by lived experience, cultural awareness, and a deep conviction that healing must honor the whole person — including their faith. Tia believes trauma may impact a person's story, but it does not determine their identity. Her leadership bridges faith-based and secular spaces, challenging systems to recognize the role of spiritual grounding in recovery and resilience.
Throughout her career, Tia has served in executive shelter leadership, statewide coalition work, and organizational training — equipping communities to respond to survivors with both excellence and empathy. She is also a published author and speaker whose writing and teaching center on obedience, purpose, and the courage to follow God beyond comfort.
At the heart of Tia's work is a simple but transformative belief: identity is anchored in who God says we are.
Why Tia Creates
For Tia, sharing strategies and tools is an act of stewardship. Advocacy work is built through experience — through the lessons learned sitting with survivors, navigating complex systems, and figuring things out in real time. Too often, those insights stay inside individual organizations instead of being passed on to strengthen the field as a whole.
"The knowledge we gain in this work isn't just ours," Tia shares. "It comes from the courage of survivors who trusted us with their stories. Sharing practical tools, frameworks, and reflections honors that trust by helping more advocates respond with wisdom, clarity, and compassion."
When tools are shared, the learning curve shortens for the next advocate stepping in. Stronger advocates lead to stronger support for survivors — and that, for Tia, is what truly moves the work forward.
Featured Tool
Tia's featured resource creates a pathway for advocates and faith leaders to support survivors of faith more effectively — bridging the gap between trauma-informed advocacy and faith communities so survivors can be served with care, understanding, and support that honors both their safety and their spiritual identity.
As a survivor leader, Tia once walked the side of the journey where tools like this didn't exist. Now, she's making sure the next advocate, ministry leader, or survivor doesn't have to.
Browse Tia's Resources:
Faith-Informed, Not Faith-Forced: A Practical Guide for Advocates in the Anti-Violence Field
Strength Without Harm: Essential Leadership Tools For Men in Ministry and Violence Prevention