Sam Fender has handed over the complete sum of his £25k Mercury Prize winnings to the Music Venues Trust, which functions to save the UK's grassroots music venues.
The star was awarded the award on mid-October as his third album his work was chosen as the top album of the past year.
The musician has opted to donate the funds to the trust, in acknowledgment of the crucial part local spots played in his initial steps.
"As an artist would not have achieved what I am doing today if it hadn't been for all the shows I performed around the region, and elsewhere, when I was starting out," remarked Sam Fender. "These venues are renowned, but they are facing challenges."
Beginning in 2023, more than 150 of these locations have shut down – approximately 16% of the entire UK sector.
Recently, well-known musicians including Pulp, the group Coldplay, the singer Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all supported the Music Venues Trust in its initiatives to help venues survive, by including a modest fee to their ticket prices, which benefits local stages.
Fender also participated, raising over £100k on his live tour to help thirty-eight grassroots venues across England, Scotland, and Wales.
The money assisted venues that were confronting potential shutdown due to difficulties stemming from water damage, blazes and personal losses, as well as regulatory hurdles, conflicts and sound issues.
Other venues were granted monetary aid in modernizing facilities and technical equipment that helped musicians and audiences.
"The idea that revenue from shows in big venues supports the local stages, where it all starts for artists like me, is just sensible," Fender has said.
He is among several artists to give his honor funds to worthy causes.
When Pulp won the prize in 1996 for their album Different Class, lead singer the singer declared that the group would contribute their prize money to the non-profit War Child.
During 2002, rapper and singer Ms Dynamite divided her award between a few organizations, including the NSPCC and a Sickle Cell charity.
"Additionally, I contributed a £1,000 to my local community centre, to their gymnastics program, because I practiced gymnastics when I was a child and they lacked better apparatus," she told outlets.
Two years ago, the band gave their funds to the youth organization that nurtured their band, in addition to other grassroots music organisations.
Also winners that year M People donated their prize to a charity for MS after a friend was diagnosed the disease.
"Winning was quite enough," said artist the singer. "The prize was the bonus but we didn't require the extra, because we had the main prize. So our winning impacted another person's life."
In the past week, the Music Venues Trust shared it had protected several grassroots venues in the South East, by placing them under community ownership.
The Joiners in Southampton and The Croft in that location were bought under the Own Our Venues scheme, which is backed by Arts Council England and supporters who buy "ownership units" in the venues.
