Sam Fender has donated the complete sum of his £25k honor cash to the MVT, which functions to protect the United Kingdom's grassroots concert spaces.
The star was given the award on 16 October as his new release People Watching was declared the top album of the previous year.
The musician has opted to donate the funds to the MVT, in recognition of the crucial part grassroots venues played in his beginning days.
"I personally would not have achieved what I am doing today if it wasn't for all the performances I performed around the region, and further afield, when I was beginning," stated the artist. "These locations are renowned, but they are in difficulty."
Since the start of 2023, over 150 of these venues have shut down – roughly one-sixth of the entire UK sector.
Over the past year, top acts like Pulp, Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all supported the trust in its attempts to support the industry, by applying a small levy to their ticket costs, which goes to help independent venues.
He also took part, generating in excess of £100,000 on his recent tour to assist 38 local spots across Britain.
These funds helped locations that were confronting imminent closure due to issues caused by floods, fire incidents and personal losses, as well as permit problems, legal disputes and neighbor objections.
Additional spaces were granted monetary aid in improving amenities and gear that positively impacted artists and audiences.
"The concept that revenue from concerts in large arenas supports the independent spots, where it kicks off for artists like me, is just logical," Sam Fender has commented.
The musician is not the first artist to give his Mercury Prize winnings to charitable organizations.
In the band received the award in 1996 for their record their work, frontman Cocker stated that the act would donate their cash to the organization War Child.
During 2002, rapper and singer Ms Dynamite shared her award among several organizations, including the children's charity and a Sickle Cell charity.
"And I gave a thousand pounds to my local community centre, to their gymnastics class, because I trained in gymnastics when I was younger and they needed new equipment," the artist shared with outlets.
In recent years, they donated their winnings to the community center that nurtured their band, in addition to other independent music bodies.
Additionally winners that year they donated their prize to a MS organization after a close contact was diagnosed the disease.
"Winning was quite enough," said vocalist Small. "The prize was the extra but we didn't require the extra, because we had the main prize. So our winning affected the lives of others."
In the past week, the MVT announced it had protected several local spots in that region, by transferring them to public stewardship.
The first in Southampton and The Croft in Bristol were purchased under the community ownership scheme, which is backed by a national body and supporters who buy "shares" in the venues.
