  A topologically-invariant and additive homology class is mostly not a natural
transformation as it is. In this paper we discuss turning such a homology class
into a natural transformation; i.e., a "categorification" of it. In a general
categorical set-up we introduce a generalized relative Grothendieck group from
a cospan of functors of categories and also consider a categorification of
additive invariants on objects. As an example, we obtain a general theory of
characteristic homology classes of singular varieties.
