Sam Fender has handed over the complete sum of his £25,000 Mercury Prize cash to the MVT, which functions to preserve the UK's small concert spaces.
The star was given the cheque on mid-October as his third album People Watching was chosen as the top album of the last 12 months.
Fender has opted to give the cash to the trust, in appreciation of the vital role grassroots venues fulfilled in his early career.
"As an artist would not have achieved what I am doing today if it weren't for all the gigs I played around the region, and further afield, when I was beginning," stated the artist. "These locations are renowned, but they are struggling."
Since the start of 2023, over 150 of these spaces have permanently closed – roughly 16 percent of the whole industry in the UK.
In the last year, top acts like the band Pulp, Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all aided the trust in its initiatives to help venues survive, by adding a minor surcharge to their admission fees, which goes to help independent venues.
He also joined in, raising in excess of £100,000 on his 2024 arena tour to assist numerous grassroots venues across Britain.
These funds assisted venues that were confronting potential shutdown due to issues stemming from floods, fire incidents and bereavements, as well as regulatory hurdles, legal disputes and neighbor objections.
Other venues were granted monetary aid in modernizing facilities and gear that directly benefitted artists and concertgoers.
"The concept that revenue from performances in big venues helps the smaller venues, where it kicks off for musicians like me, is just sensible," Sam Fender has stated.
He is not the first artist to contribute his Mercury Prize prize money to good deeds.
In the band earned the trophy in the mid-90s for their release Different Class, vocalist Cocker declared that the band would contribute their winnings to the non-profit the charity.
That year, musician Ms Dynamite divided her bounty across multiple good causes, like the children's charity and a charity for Sickle Cell.
"I also gave a grand to the center, to their gymnastics program, because I practiced gymnastics when I was a child and they needed better apparatus," the artist explained to outlets.
In recent years, the band contributed their funds to the youth organization that supported their act, alongside other local music groups.
And the 1994 recipients M People contributed their winnings to a charity for MS after a friend was found to have the illness.
"Winning was sufficient," stated vocalist the singer. "The prize was the bonus but we didn't require the bonus, because we had the cake. So our winning touched another person's life."
Recently, the Music Venues Trust announced it had protected two local spots in the South East, by placing them under local control.
The Joiners in that area and the second in the city were purchased under the community ownership initiative, which is backed by the arts council and music fans who buy "shares" in the buildings.
