Sam Fender has donated the full amount of his £25k award winnings to the MVT, which operates to save the United Kingdom's small music venues.
Fender was presented with the award on mid-October as his new release People Watching was chosen as the outstanding release of the last 12 months.
He has chosen to give the cash to the Music Venues Trust, in acknowledgment of the crucial part grassroots venues had in his initial steps.
"I personally wouldn't be doing this success if it wasn't for all the gigs I performed around the region, and elsewhere, when I was just getting going," remarked Fender. "These locations are iconic, but they are struggling."
Beginning in 2023, over 150 of these locations have ceased operations – approximately 16% of the total UK scene.
Over the past year, well-known musicians such as Pulp, Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all aided the Music Venues Trust in its initiatives to keep the scene afloat, by adding a minor surcharge to their admission fees, which supports local stages.
Sam Fender also took part, generating over £100k on his recent tour to support thirty-eight grassroots venues across Britain.
The money supported spaces that were dealing with imminent closure due to issues caused by flooding, fires and personal losses, as well as permit problems, legal disputes and neighbor objections.
Some locations were granted funding support in modernizing infrastructure and gear that positively impacted musicians and audiences.
"The concept that revenue from concerts in large arenas supports the local stages, where it begins for musicians like me, is just sensible," Fender has commented.
Fender is not the first artist to contribute his award prize money to worthy causes.
In Pulp won the prize in the mid-90s for their release Different Class, lead singer Jarvis Cocker declared that the band would contribute their cash to the charity War Child.
In 2002, rapper and singer Ms Dynamite shared her prize across a few organizations, such as the NSPCC and a Sickle Cell organization.
"Additionally, I donated a £1,000 to my local community centre, to their classes, because I trained in gymnastics when I was growing up and they lacked better apparatus," the artist told a publication.
In recent years, Ezra Collective donated their winnings to the community center that developed their band, in addition to other local music groups.
Additionally winners that year the group donated their prize to a multiple sclerosis charity after a close contact was found to have the disease.
"Winning was quite enough," stated singer the singer. "The prize was the bonus but we didn't require the extra, because we had the cake. So our success affected another person's life."
Recently, the MVT announced it had saved a couple of small stages in south-east England, by placing them under community ownership.
The Joiners in that area and the second in the city were purchased under the Own Our Venues scheme, which is funded by the arts council and supporters who purchase "stakes" in the properties.
