Sarah Millican has donated £4,000 to fund the newcomer prize at this year's ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards, organisers have announced.

Millican, who won the best newcomer award in the main Edinburgh Comedy Awards in 2008, said the prize had made a huge difference. 

'I won a newcomer award once and as well as the career lift and confidence boost, it enabled me to pay off my car loan,' she said. 'Very happy to help some new funny person kill off a bit of their debt and give them a comedy pat on the back.'

This is the fourth year of the ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards, set up when it seemed as if the original awards would not be going ahead through lack of sponsorship – which turned out to be a false alarm. 

Organisers say this year’s prize fund will be bigger than the £12,500.01 handed out last year – but declined to put a figure on it.

Comedian Nathan Cassidy, who founded the ISH awards, said:  'The ISH is about delivering as close as we can a true meritocracy at the Fringe – every eligible show is seen and it doesn't matter what venue you are in, your background, your industry support, your audience numbers, everyone is in with a chance.’ 

Last year the awards for best show – sponsored by James Corden – and best newcomer – sponsored by Patrick Monahan – were both worth £4,000.

There was also a £3,000 panel prize sponsored by Rhod Gilbert; £1,000 for best tech sponsored by Elf Lyons and £500.01 for best joke, sponsored by TakeOver Radio 106.9FM. As confirmed in April, all the sponsors except for Monahan are back on board this year.

Awards producer Sarah Bowles said the response from performers had been the motivation for continuing. 

She said: ‘The real win I feel is the good feeling these awards generate and to have the backing of a great comedian like Sarah supporting other artists is priceless.  

‘As one person that was nominated commented to us, "you have not just changed my Fringe, you’ve changed my life - because it’s given me hope that comedians like me are seen."  We have comments like this all the time from creatives now, it’s this that makes us most happy and spurs us on to give so much time for this.’

To be eligible, shows must be at least 45 minutes long, fall under the Fringe's comedy category, and not be compilations. Judges draw up a longlist after the first two weeks and produce a shortlist and winner in the final week. There’s ore information at www.edinburghcomedyawards.com.

• Click here to make Chortle a 'preferred source' on Google, which means results from this site will appear higher in your search results.