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The artist has given the full amount of his £25k award cash to the MVT, which functions to preserve the UK's small live music spots.

He was presented with the prize on 16 October as his third album his work was chosen as the best record of the last 12 months.

He has opted to donate the funds to the MVT, in acknowledgment of the vital role small stages had in his early career.

"As an artist would not have achieved what I am doing today if it weren't for all the shows I played around the region, and further afield, when I was beginning," stated Sam Fender. "These venues are iconic, but they are struggling."

Since the start of 2023, over 150 of these venues have shut down – approximately 16 percent of the whole industry in the UK.

Over the past year, well-known musicians including Pulp, the group Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all backed the trust in its efforts to help venues survive, by applying a small levy to their ticket prices, which goes to help independent venues.

Fender also took part, raising over £100k on his recent tour to assist thirty-eight grassroots venues across Britain.

These funds supported venues that were confronting potential shutdown due to challenges arising from flooding, blazes and family tragedies, as well as regulatory hurdles, legal disputes and noise complaints.

Additional spaces were granted monetary aid in improving amenities and technical equipment that positively impacted performers and concertgoers.

"The notion that money from performances in large arenas backs the independent spots, where it kicks off for artists like me, is just logical," Sam Fender has stated.

Fender is far from the only musician to give his Mercury Prize prize money to good deeds.

Back when the band won the award in the mid-90s for their album their work, vocalist the singer declared that the group would give their prize money to the charity War Child.

In 2002, artist the artist split her bounty between a few organizations, including the children's charity and a charity for Sickle Cell.

"And I donated a thousand pounds to my local community centre, to their gymnastics program, because I trained in gymnastics when I was a child and they needed better apparatus," the artist explained to the media.

In recent years, Ezra Collective contributed their funds to the local youth club that nurtured their group, alongside other local music groups.

And the 1994 recipients the group gave their prize to a charity for MS after a friend was found to have the disease.

"Winning was quite enough," said artist Small. "The cash was the extra but we didn't require the cherry, because we had the main prize. So our success affected another person's life."

Last week, the trust shared it had saved a couple of grassroots venues in the South East, by placing them under local control.

The first in that area and the second in that location were bought under the public acquisition program, which is supported by Arts Council England and supporters who acquire "shares" in the properties.