Sam Fender has given the full amount of his £25k Mercury Prize prize money to the Music Venues Trust, which functions to preserve the Britain's independent concert spaces.
The star was given the cheque on mid-October as his latest record the album was named the top album of the past year.
Fender has opted to give the cash to the trust, in acknowledgment of the crucial part small stages had in his initial steps.
"As an artist couldn't be pursuing my current career if it weren't for all the shows I performed around the North East, and further afield, when I was just getting going," stated Sam Fender. "These spaces are renowned, but they are struggling."
Beginning in 2023, more than 150 of these venues have shut down – approximately 16 percent of the whole industry in the UK.
In the last year, well-known musicians including Pulp, Coldplay, the singer Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all supported the MVT in its efforts to help venues survive, by adding a modest fee to their ticket prices, which benefits local stages.
Sam Fender also joined in, generating more than £100,000 on his live tour to assist thirty-eight grassroots venues across Britain.
The donation helped venues that were dealing with potential shutdown due to difficulties stemming from floods, fire incidents and bereavements, as well as licensing issues, conflicts and noise complaints.
Other venues were granted funding support in upgrading facilities and gear that directly benefitted musicians and audiences.
"The concept that money from shows in major spaces backs the smaller venues, where it kicks off for musicians like me, is just common sense," Fender has stated.
He is not the first artist to donate his Mercury Prize prize money to worthy causes.
In the band won the prize in the year 1996 for their record Different Class, frontman the singer announced that the band would contribute their prize money to the non-profit War Child.
In 2002, rapper and singer Ms Dynamite divided her bounty across multiple organizations, such as the NSPCC and a Sickle Cell organization.
"Additionally, I donated a grand to my local community centre, to their classes, because I practiced gymnastics when I was a child and they lacked better apparatus," she told a publication.
In recent years, the band donated their prize money to the community center that developed their group, in addition to other grassroots music organisations.
Additionally 1994 winners they gave their prize to a MS organization after a close contact was found to have the illness.
"The victory was sufficient," stated artist Small. "The cash was the cherry on top but we didn't need the cherry, because we had the main prize. So our winning impacted the lives of others."
In the past week, the trust announced it had saved two local spots in the South East, by transferring them to local control.
The Joiners in Southampton and the second in Bristol were acquired under the Own Our Venues program, which is supported by the arts council and music fans who purchase "stakes" in the buildings.
