How Savannah’s Black Chamber “Floods” Its Business Owners — and Why Tabitha Donnell Swears By It

Let me tell you about Tabitha Donnell. In Savannah, they have a name for what happens when the community decides to back a business: they flood it.

Donnell is living proof. She says the Greater Savannah Black Chamber of Commerce helped her grow her customer base and her clientele — and she has become one of its most vocal advocates.

The Work

Donnell is a Savannah business owner who credits the Greater Savannah Black Chamber of Commerce (GSBCC) with directly growing her business. “I got new customers, new clients, so I’ve actually been a beneficiary of this Chamber,” she told WSAV.

The chamber’s model is deliberately active. Rather than wait for customers to find Black-owned businesses on their own, the chamber identifies a business and mobilizes the community around it. “We’ll actually find a Black business within the community and we’ll flood them with participants and support,” Donnell explained — with supporters spending money on a particular day and keeping those dollars circulating inside the community.

And she is quick to widen the door. “Anybody can join our Chamber; the benefits are for everybody,” she says. “We want everybody to support us. We are not just for Black-owned businesses.”

The chamber’s biggest annual showcase is its Black Business Expo, which it planned to expand to the Savannah Convention Center, targeting around 5,000 attendees at its August 1, 2026 event.

The Roots

Savannah is one of the South’s most storied Black business cities, and the GSBCC was built to make sure its entrepreneurs are seen, funded and shopped with. The chamber’s strategy is a familiar one in Black economic traditions — collective spending power, directed on purpose — but its execution is modern: events, exposure and a membership model designed to pull the whole region in. For a small business owner, that collective spotlight does something an advertising budget rarely can — it puts a local shop in front of an entire community at once.

Why You Should Know Her

Tabitha Donnell’s story is the case study the chamber’s model needs: a business owner who shows up, plugs in and grows. Her voice also carries an important idea — that Black business advocacy is not a closed circle. When everyone in Savannah supports Black-owned businesses, the whole city’s economy gets stronger.

Quick facts

• Tabitha Donnell is a Savannah, Georgia business owner.
• She credits the Greater Savannah Black Chamber of Commerce with growing her customers and clients.
• She describes the chamber’s “flood them” model of community-directed spending.
• She emphasizes that the chamber is open to all and its benefits are for everybody.
• The GSBCC’s Black Business Expo was expanded to the Savannah Convention Center, targeting about 5,000 attendees on August 1, 2026.
• The chamber connects local Black-owned businesses with resources and increased visibility.

📸 Photo: WSAV / Greater Savannah Black Chamber of Commerce

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