Shea Flanagan

Shea Flanagan
Director of Sustainability, Conservation Resource Partners, LLC
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Master of Environmental Management, 2020
Women’s Forest Congress Ucross High Plains Stewardship Initiative - Western Resources Fellow School of Management Nonprofit Board Fellow program

Shea serves as the Director of Sustainability and Strategy for Conservation Resources, an investment manager that seeks to align private equity with conservation capital for the purpose of acquiring and managing a diverse portfolio of real asset properties. She creates and implements innovative conservation opportunities firmwide, including within its sustainable agriculture and forestry initiatives. Previously, Shea worked for the BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group.

At Yale, Shea focused on the themes of conservation finance, systems change initiatives and organizational management. She wrote for the Conservation Finance Network at the Center for Business and the Environment, volunteered as a Nonprofit Board Fellow with The Nature Conservancy in Connecticut, worked for the Ucross High Plains Stewardship Initiative, and interned with LegacyWorks Group in the Teton region.

Prior to earning her Master of Environmental Management, Shea worked for The Nature Conservancy in two state chapters on their conservation and stewardship teams. She also worked for the Giraffe Conservation Foundation in Kenya as a field researcher. She is a graduate with honors from Dartmouth College, double majoring in Biology (Ecology) and Environmental Studies.

Authored Articles
Grassland and trees

Investment Advisor Perspectives on How To Bring Conservation Into Traditional Portfolios

This article is the second of a two-part series focusing on the challenges and opportunities of incorporating conservation finance into traditional investment portfolios. CFN spoke to investment advisors about strategies for overcoming major barriers. Increased interest in impact opens opportunities for greater incorporation of conservation finance into traditional investment portfolios...
New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

Investment Advisors Weigh In on Barriers to Conservation in Portfolios

This two-part article series explores the challenges of and opportunities for incorporating conservation finance into traditional investment portfolios. In Part 1, various current and former investment advisors with deep knowledge of impact finance discuss the challenges of integrating conservation investments into traditional investment portfolios.
Wayne National Forest

Wayne National Forest in Ohio / Dan Keck

Pay-for-Success Financing

Traditionally, conservation efforts raise funding for projects and actions in the hope that those activities will result in desired outcomes. This Toolkit explores Pay-for-success financing, an alternative approach. This model ties funding for conservation to project outcomes, incentivizing the achievement of objectives and shifting risk away from public agencies and...
Cocoino National Forest in Colorado

New Impact Investing Partnership Fuels Ranch Conservation

One would not typically think a timberland investment manager would partner with a land trust to conserve a ranch as an impact investing deal. However, this is exactly the case for the 25,000-acre BX Ranch in Pueblo County, Colorado. At the 2018 Land Trust Alliance Rally Conference, the “Impact Investing...
Lily in Upstate New York

Using Financial Models Sets up Land Trusts for Success

Financial modeling is an emerging application for land trusts. It could make a great difference in their ability to forecast and plan for various future financial scenarios. At this year’s Land Trust Alliance Rally conference during the “Your Future: Financial Modeling for Long-Term Stability” workshop, the Dutchess Land Conservancy of...