Sam Fender has given the entirety of his £25k award cash to the trust for venues, which operates to protect the Britain's grassroots concert spaces.
The star was presented with the cheque on mid-October as his new release the album was declared the outstanding release of the past year.
The musician has chosen to donate the funds to the Music Venues Trust, in acknowledgment of the vital role local spots played in his early career.
"I personally would not have achieved what I am doing today if it weren't for all the gigs I performed around the region, and further afield, when I was starting out," remarked the artist. "These venues are legendary, but they are facing challenges."
From early 2023 onward, over 150 of these venues have shut down – approximately 16 percent of the whole industry in the UK.
In the last year, major artists such as the band Pulp, the group Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all backed the Music Venues Trust in its attempts to help venues survive, by including a modest fee to their ticket prices, which supports local stages.
Fender also joined in, raising over £100k on his live tour to assist numerous local spots across the UK.
The donation helped spaces that were facing possible closure due to challenges caused by water damage, fires and family tragedies, as well as regulatory hurdles, conflicts and neighbor objections.
Some locations were granted funding support in upgrading facilities and gear that positively impacted performers and fans.
"The notion that revenue from performances in large arenas backs the independent spots, where it kicks off for musicians like me, is just sensible," Fender has stated.
He is not the first artist to contribute his honor winnings to worthy causes.
Back when the band received the prize in the mid-90s for their release Different Class, vocalist Jarvis Cocker stated that the act would donate their prize money to the charity War Child.
That year, artist Ms Dynamite shared her award among multiple organizations, such as the NSPCC and a charity for Sickle Cell.
"Additionally, I gave a grand to Highgate Newtown, to their gymnastics program, because I trained in gymnastics when I was a child and they lacked better apparatus," the artist shared with a publication.
In recent years, the band gave their prize money to the local youth club that nurtured their act, in addition to other independent music bodies.
And 1994 winners M People donated their prize to a charity for MS after a close contact was found to have the disease.
"Receiving the award was sufficient," stated vocalist Small. "The money was the bonus but we didn't need the bonus, because we had the main prize. So our winning impacted another person's life."
Recently, the MVT shared it had protected a couple of small stages in the South East, by placing them under local control.
The first in that area and the other in the city were bought under the public acquisition program, which is funded by the arts council and supporters who buy "ownership units" in the buildings.
