How to fight for a cause?

There are some social issues I care about. I have been thinking about what I could do to help with the cause. Some of the causes I am thinking about need more than just helping, they need fighting for. I am, for some reason, thinking of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa as examples of people who have fought fights and won. But then to put things into perspective, they did not fight for just causes, they fought for people. It appears, then, to me, that it is easier to fight for people than to fight for causes. Because, when it's for people, people come forth to your aid, perhaps a little more reluctantly than you would want them to, but they still do. To state it as an example, Gandhi did not fight for "freedom", even thought he may have put it that way in some of his speeches, he fought for the "freedom of the people of India". The object of the cause is not only important, but it's participation in the cause may be immensely important too. While, of course, I have to admit that there are different kinds of causes and some causes may have "subjects" rather than objects, but a cause in itself is perhaps a difficult thing to fight for.