Rescuing and caring for companion animals requires skill sets that are complex and evolving. Many organizations support animal welfare groups with tools such as legislative advocacy, up-to-the-minute news reports, and best practice documents. Some offer free and low-cost online classes in a wide array of topics. Here is a list of offerings that look interesting.
The Best Friends Network has an extensive list of on-demand modules and handbooks through its e-learning site. Topics include adoption, transport, medicine, community cats, and volunteers. There is a separate link to materials designed to support people operating 501(c)(3) businesses. In addition, Best Friends has also teamed up with Southern Utah University to offer certificate programs that provide a foundation for further learning. The courses are inexpensive and offer good value. Titles include Introduction to Animal Services, Cat Lifesaving Fundamentals, Dog Lifesaving Fundamentals, and leadership skills. Follow this link for more information BF Foundation Courses
Maddie’s Fund has an entire site dedicated to educating animal welfare professionals, volunteers and staff. Go to Maddie's University to check out their offerings. All of the online courses are free; some are on-demand, others are live presentations and require registration with class size restrictions. Maddie’s University offerings are approved for the NACA (National Animal Care and Control Association) continuing education requirements. Sample course titles include Taking the fear out of bottle feeding and Increasing adoptions through dog advocacy.
The ASPCA is another organization with a separate education website. Check out the course catalog of free webinars at ASPCApro. While many of the offerings are aimed at shelter professionals (with NACA continuing education credit), there are others that volunteers and animal welfare professionals will find useful.
HumanePro is the National Humane Society’s online learning center. One interesting feature of the site is a web page with free handouts for animal welfare groups that work with the public. HumanePro fact sheets This site is decidedly different from the others, though. It features short articles written by professionals, and was the only site with separate articles for critters like rabbits. To go deeper into a topic look for the Video Library under Training + Events for online lectures.
Finally, Lewis and Clark School of Law In Portland has a Masters of Studies program in Animal Law for the non-lawyer. It is an online certificate program and is definitely not free or inexpensive. However, graduates from this program are teaching, creating policy, researching, and managing wildlife sanctuaries around the world. Animal Law Studies