Without an economic recovery strategy, a disaster incident can cause a micro-recession, which could negatively affect your community for years. Steps taken by local leaders in the first critical hours, days and weeks can make a significant difference in offsetting this detrimental side effect of an already unfortunate situation. This guidebook and supporting resources provide a framework of discussion for local business and community leaders to develop an economic recovery strategy for their own community and connects disaster management functions with economic principles to identify key issues and suggested actions to prepare and recover from a disaster.