The artist has handed over the complete sum of his £25,000 award cash to the Music Venues Trust, which operates to save the United Kingdom's small concert spaces.
Fender was awarded the prize on October 16 as his new release the album was declared the top album of the past year.
The musician has opted to give the cash to the MVT, in recognition of the essential function grassroots venues played in his initial steps.
"I personally would not have achieved my current career if it wasn't for all the gigs I did around the region, and elsewhere, when I was just getting going," said Sam Fender. "These venues are renowned, but they are in difficulty."
Since the start of 2023, more than 150 of these spaces have permanently closed – roughly 16% of the entire UK sector.
Over the past year, top acts including Pulp, Coldplay, the singer Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all backed the MVT in its attempts to help venues survive, by adding a modest fee to their admission fees, which benefits local stages.
Sam Fender also joined in, generating more than £100,000 on his recent tour to assist numerous grassroots venues across Britain.
The donation assisted spaces that were facing possible closure due to difficulties arising from flooding, blazes and family tragedies, as well as regulatory hurdles, court cases and sound issues.
Some locations obtained funding support in modernizing infrastructure and gear that helped performers and concertgoers.
"The concept that revenue from performances in big venues supports the independent spots, where it begins for performers like me, is just logical," Sam Fender has stated.
The musician is far from the only musician to donate his Mercury Prize funds to worthy causes.
When Pulp received the prize in the mid-90s for their record the album, lead singer Jarvis Cocker announced that the group would donate their cash to the organization War Child.
During 2002, artist the artist divided her prize among multiple organizations, like the NSPCC and a charity for Sickle Cell.
"I also contributed a grand to Highgate Newtown, to their classes, because I trained in gymnastics when I was a child and they lacked better apparatus," the artist told the media.
In recent years, Ezra Collective gave their winnings to the youth organization that developed their band, alongside other grassroots music organisations.
Additionally winners that year the group donated their winnings to a multiple sclerosis charity after a friend was diagnosed the illness.
"Winning was sufficient," remarked artist the singer. "The prize was the bonus but we didn't require the bonus, because we had the main prize. So our success impacted the lives of others."
Recently, the MVT announced it had protected several grassroots venues in south-east England, by transferring them to public stewardship.
The first in the city and the other in the city were acquired under the public acquisition initiative, which is backed by a national body and music fans who buy "ownership units" in the buildings.
