Fundraising in the workplace can be hard. When I started in my current office five years ago, every posteri or email soliciting donations from co-workers had to be approved by human resources. Given such stringent requirements, not much fundraising happened at work.

The economy is different now, and benefits are fewer, so HR has relaxed its rules on what we can get away with. It's no longer uncommon to see flyers stuck to the break room refrigerators, advertising an employee's favorite cause. I had some luck getting in on that action last year, so I decided to put up my own poster again.

Printing my solicitation letter wouldn't do, though. When someone is sitting at a computer or at their home office, they have time to read an email or postal letter that was addressed specifically to them. By contrast, someone passing through a kitchen area at work is not likely to slow down to absorb a full page of text.

I thought I might be challenged (no pun intended) to create something simpler, as I recently finished a master's degree in publishing, but without taking the one course that would've addressed my weakness: design. Fortunately, the Macintosh program Pages, part of Apple's iWork suite, had plenty of templates for me to choose from.

Apple's iWork offers many predesigned templates to help you create a poster.

Of course, most people will use Microsoft Word, but it too has a "Project Gallery" with both flyers and event posters to choose from.

In Pages, I chose to make a "Sports Event Poster Small" that would print on a standard 8.5" x 11" piece of paper. I changed the headline, all the filler text, the year, and the contact info (using a link shortener), then dragged and dropped in some photos — one of me at a National MS Society event, the other of the reason I participate in the MS Challenge Walk. Bam! Done:

It took me about two minutes to make this poster!

As I discovered, creating an attractive flyer or poster for the workplace is easy — and, if your employer allows it, it can be lucrative, since you know your target audience is the gainfully employed. If you give them the opportunity, what's their excuse NOT to give?

Ken joined the MS Challenge Walk in 2005, more than a decade after his mother was diagnosed. After walking for three years and 150 miles, he switched to the support crew and now rides his bicycle along the trail, providing whatever encouragement (and snacks!) he can to the 600 walkers. He is also an alumnus of the event's steering committee and is this site's webmaster.