Sam Fender has donated the complete sum of his £25,000 Mercury Prize prize money to the MVT, which works to protect the Britain's small concert spaces.
The star was given the prize on mid-October as his latest record his work was declared the best record of the last 12 months.
Fender has opted to donate the funds to the Music Venues Trust, in acknowledgment of the crucial part small stages played in his early career.
"I personally would not have achieved what I am doing today if it wasn't for all the performances I performed around the North East, and beyond, when I was starting out," said the artist. "These locations are renowned, but they are struggling."
From early 2023 onward, over 150 of these locations have ceased operations – roughly 16% of the whole industry in the UK.
In the last year, well-known musicians including the band Pulp, the group Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all aided the trust in its attempts to help venues survive, by applying a minor surcharge to their ticket costs, which supports smaller concert halls.
Fender also joined in, collecting more than £100,000 on his recent tour to help numerous local spots across England, Scotland, and Wales.
These funds assisted locations that were confronting potential shutdown due to issues arising from floods, fires and bereavements, as well as licensing issues, conflicts and noise complaints.
Other venues were granted financial assistance in improving facilities and technical equipment that helped musicians and audiences.
"The concept that revenue from shows in large arenas backs the smaller venues, where it begins for artists like me, is just sensible," the star has said.
The musician is far from the only musician to give his Mercury Prize winnings to charitable organizations.
When Pulp received the prize in 1996 for their release Different Class, frontman Cocker announced that the group would donate their cash to the non-profit War Child.
That year, rapper and singer Ms Dynamite split her bounty among a few organizations, including the NSPCC and a Sickle Cell organization.
"And 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 needed better apparatus," she shared with the media.
Previously, the band gave their funds to the local youth club that nurtured their band, in addition to other independent music bodies.
Additionally 1994 winners the group gave their award to a MS organization after a close contact was found to have the condition.
"Winning was sufficient," remarked singer Heather Small. "The cash was the extra but we didn't require the bonus, because we had the cake. So our success impacted another person's life."
Recently, the MVT announced it had saved two small stages in the South East, by transferring them to local control.
One venue in Southampton and the other in Bristol were bought under the public acquisition scheme, which is backed by Arts Council England and music fans who acquire "shares" in the buildings.
