Sam Fender has donated the entirety of his £25,000 award cash to the Music Venues Trust, which operates to save the United Kingdom's independent concert spaces.
The star was given the award on mid-October as his latest record People Watching was named the top album of the past year.
Fender has decided to hand the money over to the trust, in acknowledgment of the crucial part grassroots venues fulfilled in his beginning days.
"I personally couldn't be pursuing this success if it weren't for all the performances I performed around the North East, and further afield, when I was beginning," said the artist. "These venues are legendary, but they are in difficulty."
Since the start of 2023, at least 150 of these spaces have ceased operations – 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 backed the trust in its attempts to help venues survive, by applying a minor surcharge to their admission fees, which supports smaller concert halls.
He also joined in, generating in excess of £100,000 on his recent tour to assist thirty-eight local spots across England, Scotland, and Wales.
The money supported locations that were facing imminent closure due to challenges caused by flooding, fires and family tragedies, as well as licensing issues, conflicts and sound issues.
Additional spaces were granted monetary aid in improving amenities and sound and lighting systems that helped artists and fans.
"The concept that revenue from performances in big venues backs the local stages, where it kicks off for artists like me, is just logical," the star has commented.
He is far from the only musician to donate his Mercury Prize prize money to good deeds.
When they won the trophy in the year 1996 for their record their work, frontman the singer stated that the group would give their prize money to the organization War Child.
That year, rapper and singer she divided her bounty between several organizations, including the NSPCC and a Sickle Cell charity.
"I also contributed a grand to Highgate Newtown, to their gymnastics class, because I trained in gymnastics when I was a child and they required better apparatus," the artist shared with outlets.
Two years ago, the band gave their prize money to the local youth club that supported their band, as well as other grassroots music organisations.
Also the 1994 recipients the group contributed their prize to a MS organization after a friend was diagnosed the illness.
"The victory was ample," stated singer Heather Small. "The cash was the bonus but we didn't need the extra, because we had the honor. So our winning impacted somebody else's life."
Last week, the MVT announced it had protected a couple of local spots in south-east England, by bringing them into community ownership.
The Joiners in Southampton and the other in Bristol were purchased under the community ownership initiative, which is funded by Arts Council England and supporters who buy "ownership units" in the buildings.
