Charitopia was a website aiming to match donors of equipment and supplies with charities able to use or resell those items. It could be thought of an an “eBay for charities,” where donors could list items and/or search for items needed by charities, and charities could list their needs and/or search for items from willing donors.

Charitopia also aimed to record all donations made through the system and offer the parties relevant bookkeeping services, providing donors with estimates of tax deductions they could claim each year, and charities with donation records for accounting purposes.

The key to Charitopia’s operation was the quality of its product catalog. The catalog emphasized accurate product classification, with attributes based on this classification and well-defined values for these attributes, allowing donors and charities to identify equipment and supplies easily and precisely, and the system to provide donors and charities with accurate estimates of value for tax purposes.