Sam Fender has handed over the full amount of his £25k award prize money to the trust for venues, which operates to save the Britain's small live music spots.
Fender was presented with the cheque on 16 October as his latest record the album was declared the best record of the previous year.
He has opted to give the cash to the MVT, in acknowledgment of the essential function small stages played in his early career.
"As an artist would not have achieved this success if it wasn't for all the gigs I did around the area, and further afield, when I was starting out," remarked the artist. "These locations are renowned, but they are in difficulty."
Beginning in 2023, more than 150 of these spaces have shut down – about one-sixth of the entire UK sector.
Recently, well-known musicians like Pulp, the group Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all aided the Music Venues Trust in its efforts to keep the scene afloat, by applying a modest fee to their ticket costs, which supports smaller concert halls.
Sam Fender also joined in, collecting more than £100,000 on his 2024 arena tour to assist 38 local spots across England, Scotland, and Wales.
The donation helped locations that were confronting potential shutdown due to difficulties stemming from water damage, blazes and bereavements, as well as regulatory hurdles, legal disputes and neighbor objections.
Additional spaces were granted financial assistance in improving infrastructure and sound and lighting systems that directly benefitted performers and fans.
"The concept that revenue from performances in big venues helps the smaller venues, where it all starts for artists like me, is just sensible," Sam Fender has commented.
Fender is not the first artist to donate his honor funds to charitable organizations.
In the band won the award in 1996 for their record Different Class, lead singer the singer declared that the group would donate their prize money to the organization the charity.
That year, musician Ms Dynamite shared her award among multiple charities, such as the NSPCC and a charity for Sickle Cell.
"I also contributed a thousand pounds to my local community centre, to their classes, because I did gymnastics when I was a child and they lacked better apparatus," Ms Dynamite shared with the media.
In recent years, they gave their prize money to the local youth club that nurtured their band, alongside other local music groups.
Also the 1994 recipients the group gave their prize to a MS organization after a acquaintance was found to have the condition.
"Winning was ample," stated artist Heather Small. "The cash was the bonus but we didn't need the extra, because we had the cake. So our success affected somebody else's life."
Last week, the Music Venues Trust shared it had protected several grassroots venues in that region, by bringing them into community ownership.
The first in Southampton and the second in the city were bought under the Own Our Venues program, which is supported by a national body and music fans who purchase "shares" in the venues.
