A big tip of the hat to Summit Hotel Properties, the Austin, Texas-based REIT, for landing in the No. 1 spot in the Hotels, Dining & Leisure category on Newsweek’s list of America’s Most Charitable Companies. Newsweek just announced its list this past week. Following Summit in the Hotels, Dining & Leisure category: Caesars Entertainment, No. 57; Vail Resorts, No. 98; Travel + Leisure, No. 105; Las Vegas Sands, No. 115; Marriott International, No. 136; Hilton, No. 155; Boyd, No. 171; MGM Resorts International, No. 193; Choice Hotels, No. 256; and Soho House & Co, No. 258.
Newsweek compiled its list in partnership with Statista. According to Newsweek, “The ranking aims to increase transparency around corporate philanthropy by evaluating companies through a multi-layered, data-driven approach that reflects both public perception and documented philanthropic activities. A structured process was implemented to achieve a comprehensive scoring result, combining survey-based perception, social listening signals, and KPI-based evidence from corporate reporting into one overall score.”
Statista conducted an online panel survey among approximately 18,000 U.S. residents (fielded in September 2025) to capture external perceptions of companies’ philanthropic and charitable activities. Respondents rated companies they were familiar with on statements related to charitable behavior and societal contribution (e.g., perceived commitment to positive societal impact and support for communities).
Social Listening: Social listening was used to capture how philanthropic engagement is discussed in the public sphere by tracking and analyzing mentions and sentiment across news and online sources. Monitoring covered the period October 15 to December 15, 2025.
For the KPI component, companies’ publicly available CSR/ESG reporting and related disclosures were systematically reviewed to assess philanthropic activities, including metrics such as volunteering and corporate giving. To avoid giving an advantage to very large firms purely due to scale, key metrics were normalized (e.g., volunteer hours relative to employee headcount and corporate giving relative to revenue). In addition, reports were scanned for charity-related themes and initiatives, with companies receiving positive scores upon meeting defined thresholds.
Details in 2025 Corporate Responsibility Report
Summit Hotel Properties was most recently featured in Green Lodging News in November for the release of its 2025 Corporate Responsibility Report. The following are just some examples of the company’s charitable work:
- Through its Summit Foundation, approximately $1 million was donated to its local community. Summit has a partnership with Partnerships for Children (PFC). PFC was founded in 2003 to bridge the gap between limited government resources and the growing needs of children and families in the care of Child Protective Services (CPS). The mission of PFC is to make tomorrow better than today by supporting and empowering children, youth, and families involved in CPS. Although the Summit Foundation supports other community-based organizations, PFC is its primary community partner. The partnership consists of a substantial donation made to the organization annually and various hosted service events for Summit employees in support of PFC’s resource programs.
- Last year, employees contributed more than 2,000 hours of community service.
- In 2025 the company supported more than 20 charitable organizations.
- Since 2015, Summit has supported the American Hotel & Lodging Association Foundation as a Four Diamond sponsor and donated approximately $300,000 to the organization through their Opening Doors Campaign and other fundraising events.
“By giving back to society—whether through donations, employee volunteerism or sustained investment in local communities—businesses can make a positive impact beyond their bottom line. In an era of heightened skepticism toward businesses, charitable engagement has emerged as a key signal of corporate values and credibility,” Summit Hotel Properties says.
A 2025 survey from Bentley University and Gallup found that 95 percent of Americans believe it is important for companies to support their communities, while 90 percent said that companies should work to improve our world.
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