Cindy M. Lott, a nonresident fellow in the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, is a clinical professor of philanthropic studies, director of the professional doctorate in philanthropic leadership, and Stead policy fellow at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Previously, she was an associate professor of practice and academic director for nonprofit management programs at Columbia University. Her teaching, research, and consulting span nonprofit management, ethics, regulation, and policy.

Lott was executive director and senior counsel to the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School and was developer and lead counsel to the Charities Regulation and Oversight Project. She was also an inaugural policy fellow at Independent Sector. She develops and moderates national convenings on state and federal regulation of the charitable sector and is engaged in research regarding regulatory capacity and enforcement at the state level.

Lott served on the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Committee on Tax-Exempt and Government Entities, serves on the public policy committee of Independent Sector, and is chair of the public policy, politics, and law section of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action.

Lott was chief counsel to the 2004 Democratic National Convention and was deputy counsel to the 2000 Democratic National Convention. She graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Indiana, and Massachusetts.