Extension > Family > Families in Tough Times > Disaster Recovery > Recovery After Disaster: The Family Financial Toolkit
Recovery After Disaster: The Family Financial Toolkit
Putting your financial recovery puzzle together
A natural disaster can strike anywhere, any time. If you or a loved one has been affected by a natural disaster, it’s important to know that financial recovery takes time and can be a complex process. There are no easy fixes and no guarantees.
This Recovery After Disaster: The Family Financial Toolkit discusses strategies and provides tools that can help you move along the road towards financial recovery. The tools provided in this toolkit are designed to help families make decisions that are best for their family. This toolkit is designed so that those financially impacted by a disaster can utilize the individual units or use the entire toolkit as their situation requires.
Recent Awards
- Consumer Financial Information Award (national) — AFCPE — November 2011
- Florence Hall Award (national) — NEAFCS — to be awarded September 2012
The toolkit is available in three versions: Minnesota, North Dakota, and non-state specific. If you are a professional or volunteer using the non-state specific version, see additional information about this version.
See the complete toolkit: Minnesota (3.9 MB PDF) | North Dakota (4.9 MB PDF) | Non-state specific (3.6 MB PDF)
See the front and back toolkit covers: Minnesota (66 K PDF) | North Dakota (68 K PDF) | Non-state specific (66 K PDF)
See the spine cover (292 K PDF)
See additional information for professionals and volunteers using the non-state specific version.
Individual Toolkit Units
Unit 1: How do I use this toolkit?
Tools to help you sort out the pieces of your financial recovery puzzle.
Unit 2: What are key strategies for financial recovery?
Disaster survivors and the helping agencies that work with them have identified several key strategies and resources that all disaster survivors should know.
Unit 3: What tools do I need to implement key strategies?
This unit includes tools that will help you carry out the key strategies identified in the previous unit.
Unit 4: Where do I start?
This unit includes tasks to complete when you return to your property in the first hours and days after a disaster and as you plan for clean-up.
Unit 5: Where am I financially?
This unit helps you assess your financial situation and start to make plans for long-term recovery.
Unit 6: Where will I live if I’m a homeowner?
This unit helps you assess your short-term and long-term housing options and reviews the possible assistance and resources that may be available to you as a homeowner.
Unit 7: Where will I live if I’m a renter?
This unit guides you in an assessment of your short-term and long-term housing options and reviews the possible assistance and resources that may be available to you as a renter.
Unit 8: The New Normal
This unit explores how your financial recovery puzzle is coming together and what you may need to do to complete it.
Unit 9: Disaster Recovery Resources for Families
This unit offers additional resources that will help with your disaster recovery.
For Professionals
Recovery After Disaster: The Family Financial Toolkit Case Studies — Sample case studies to explore how the toolkit can be used with families. (218 K PDF)
Family Financial Recovery from a Natural Disaster — Recorded webinar presented nationally on June 23, 2011 to Extension staff. Reviews the Recovery After Disaster: The Family Financial Toolkit and other disaster recovery resources available through eXtension.
- View the presentation slides (5 MB PDF)
- Listen to the presentation
Other Recommended Resources
Disaster Recovery Journal (Android app) — North Dakota State University Extension Service — Helps you record information about damages to your home and property using text, images and audio.
For more information about this toolkit or any of the related resources, contact Patricia Olson (pdolson@umn.edu; 612-624-1786).
You may also be interested in other resources for disaster recovery, extreme weather, or dealing with stress.
