Sam Fender has donated the entirety of his twenty-five thousand pound award prize money to the trust for venues, which operates to save the UK's small live music spots.
He was presented with the cheque on 16 October as his latest record People Watching was declared the best record of the past year.
Fender has chosen to donate the funds to the trust, in acknowledgment of the vital role small stages played in his beginning days.
"As an artist couldn't be pursuing my current career if it wasn't for all the gigs I performed around the area, and elsewhere, when I was starting out," stated Fender. "These locations are iconic, but they are struggling."
From early 2023 onward, more than 150 of these locations have shut down – roughly 16 percent of the whole industry in the UK.
In the last year, top acts such as the band Pulp, Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all backed the Music Venues Trust in its attempts to support the industry, by applying a minor surcharge to their ticket costs, which benefits smaller concert halls.
Fender also joined in, collecting over £100k on his live tour to assist 38 grassroots venues across Britain.
The donation assisted spaces that were facing potential shutdown due to difficulties stemming from flooding, fire incidents and bereavements, as well as regulatory hurdles, court cases and noise complaints.
Additional spaces obtained funding support in improving facilities and technical equipment that positively impacted musicians and fans.
"The idea that revenue from performances in major spaces supports the local stages, where it all starts for performers like me, is just logical," Fender has said.
He is far from the only musician to donate his Mercury Prize funds to charitable organizations.
When Pulp won the prize in the year 1996 for their release the album, frontman the singer stated that the group would contribute their prize money to the non-profit the charity.
That year, artist Ms Dynamite divided her award among a few organizations, including the NSPCC and a Sickle Cell organization.
"And I donated a thousand pounds to my local community centre, to their gymnastics program, because I practiced gymnastics when I was growing up and they lacked better apparatus," the artist shared with a publication.
Previously, the band contributed their winnings to the community center that nurtured their group, in addition to other local music groups.
And 1994 winners M People contributed their winnings to a charity for MS after a friend was found to have the illness.
"The victory was ample," stated artist the singer. "The prize was the bonus but we could do without the cherry, because we had the main prize. So our victory impacted the lives of others."
Recently, the Music Venues Trust shared it had protected several local spots in south-east England, by placing them under community ownership.
One venue in that area and The Croft in that location were bought under the community ownership initiative, which is supported by a national body and supporters who buy "ownership units" in the properties.
