Sam Fender has donated the full amount of his £25,000 honor prize money to the trust for venues, which functions to preserve the United Kingdom's independent music venues.
Fender was awarded the prize on mid-October as his new release People Watching was declared the top album of the last 12 months.
He has chosen to give the cash to the trust, in appreciation of the essential function small stages played in his early career.
"I personally couldn't be pursuing what I am doing today if it wasn't for all the shows I performed around the area, and further afield, when I was beginning," said the artist. "These venues are renowned, but they are struggling."
Since the start of 2023, over 150 of these venues have permanently closed – approximately 16 percent of the entire UK sector.
Recently, top acts such as Pulp, the group Coldplay, the singer Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all aided the trust in its initiatives to help venues survive, by including a modest fee to their admission fees, which supports smaller concert halls.
He also joined in, collecting over £100k on his live tour to support thirty-eight grassroots venues across the UK.
The donation helped locations that were dealing with possible closure due to challenges stemming from water damage, fires and family tragedies, as well as regulatory hurdles, legal disputes and noise complaints.
Additional spaces received funding support in improving infrastructure and sound and lighting systems that helped musicians and concertgoers.
"The notion that funds from concerts in big venues supports the smaller venues, where it kicks off for musicians like me, is just sensible," Fender has commented.
The musician is among several artists to contribute his Mercury Prize winnings to good deeds.
In the band won the trophy in 1996 for their album their work, frontman Jarvis Cocker declared that the act would donate their prize money to the non-profit War Child.
That year, rapper and singer she split her award between a few good causes, such as the children's charity and a Sickle Cell organization.
"And I gave a grand to the center, to their classes, because I did gymnastics when I was a child and they lacked better apparatus," she shared with outlets.
In recent years, they donated their prize money to the local youth club that developed their group, in addition to other independent music bodies.
Also winners that year M People contributed their award to a charity for MS after a acquaintance was found to have the disease.
"Receiving the award was sufficient," said singer the singer. "The cash was the extra but we didn't need the extra, because we had the cake. So our victory touched another person's life."
Last week, the trust revealed it had protected two local spots in the South East, by bringing them into local control.
One venue in Southampton and the second in the city were bought under the community ownership initiative, which is supported by a national body and supporters who buy "stakes" in the venues.
