Stephen King and wife’s $3m pledge helped save hometown library

When novelist Stephen King and his wife, Tabitha King, pledged $3 million to renovate the Bangor Public Library in Maine in 2013, the donation came with a condition: the institution had to raise another $6 million. The challenge helped set a wider fundraising effort in motion, with the library meeting its $9 million target in July 2014 before the modernisation project reached $9.6 million by 2016.The story was not simply about a celebrity making a large donation. The Kings’ pledge formed one-third of the proposed fundraising target, requiring the library to secure support from voters, businesses, foundations and individual donors.