Doug Herzog and Patrick Vien Named Board Members of Comic Relief

Comic Relief , the nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children and youth overcome poverty, has added TV industry veterans Doug Herzog and Patrick Vien to its board of directors.

The pair will help oversee Comic Relief’s strategy, finances and approve grants that the organization makes to its charity partners.

Comic Relief has its origins in the mid-1980s in a nonprofit founded by director Richard Curtis in the U.K. A U.S. iteration was established soon after by Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams. In the 1980s and ’90s the organization focused on homelessness. It became well known through a series of fundraising specials hosted by Crystal, Goldberg and Williams that ran on HBO on and off from 1986 through 2006. The last “Comic Relief” special aired on HBO and TBS